Policy & Regulation

Rohit Chopra is named senior advisor to the Democratic Attorneys General Association's working group on consumer protection and affordability; Flagstar Bank adds additional wealth-planning capabilities to its private banking division; Chime promotes three members of its executive leadership team; and more in this week's banking news roundup.

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency Friday approved national trust charter applications for five crypto firms, affirming the administration's push to allow crypto companies the ability to take deposits. 

Kansas City Federal Reserve President Jeffrey Schmid and Chicago Fed President Austan Goolsbee said in statements Friday that their dissents from this week's interest rate decision were spurred by inflation concerns and a lack of sufficient economic data.

Know-your-customer rules are a longtime fixture of bank compliance regimes, but as autonomous AI "agents" increasingly access banking systems, new rules for verifying their status are desperately needed.

Leading Democrats on the Senate Banking Committee sent a letter to Chair Tim Scott, R-S.C., pointing out the as-yet unsatisfied legal requirement for prudential regulators to appear in Congress semiannually.

The Federal Reserve Board of Governors voted Wednesday to reappoint 11 sitting regional Fed presidents, without any dissents. The move precludes any effort the White House might have made to pressure the board to deny reappointments.

Enova International, a nonbank lender in Chicago, plans to gain scale by taking over Grasshopper Bank's national bank charter. The deal already faces skepticism from critics of Enova's high-cost lending model.

A Consumer Financial Protection Bureau report on Pay in 4 buy now/pay later loans offered validation for an industry that has faced criticism for expanding into everyday spending, such as food delivery.

Fed Chair Jerome Powell, speaking at a press conference after the December FOMC meeting, said the central bank is holding interest rates steady until it gets more clarity on the economy.