The Populist Threat to Banks

Hilary Allen, a law professor at American University Washington College of Law, warns that a stablecoin regulation bill could open the door to mixing banking and commerce, allowing WalMart, Amazon or Google to effectively set up their own bank without facing bank-like regulations. She also details issues with the legislation introduced to date, including failures to address critically important issues.

John Heltman and Claire Williams, two journalists with American Banker, discuss the outlet’s recent series on populism and how it impacts banks. They tackle why the banking industry is so often the target of populist politicians from both the left and the right, how populism is changing the debate on various bank policy debates now, and what comes next.

Aaron Klein, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, and Mark Calabria, former director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, debate the best way to address the housing crisis, as well as the dangers of politicizing banking regulation, whether the Fed is too worried about consensus, if the central bank is secretly working on a central bank digital currency and who should play The Sphere next. 

Mark Calabria, former director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, and Aaron Klein, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, discuss how politics factors into the Fed’s monetary policy decisions, decry the rescue of uninsured depositors last year, debate how to fix liquidity rules and weigh in on revamping the FHLBs.

Graham Steele, the former Treasury assistant secretary for financial institutions, offers a behind-the-scenes perspective on regulators’ decision to rescue uninsured depositors at Silicon Valley Bank and two other regional banks. He also discusses what policy changes are still needed as a result, the greatest challenge facing the banking industry, and why he’s worried about a “catastrophic” cybersecurity event.

One year after the fall of Silicon Valley Bank, the reverberations into banking policy continue. Brian Gardner, Chief Washington Policy Strategist at investment bank Stifel, discusses how the failure impacted bank supervision and the debate over new capital and liquidity rules—and how it will remain a part of the calculus moving forward.

House Majority Whip Tom Emmer talks about his fears for the future of small banks—and how to reverse course—and why his movement to ban the Fed from creating a CBDC has gained steam. He also tackles his predictions for the House elections this year, the CFPB’s push against so-called “junk” fees and how he became one of the leading advocates for cryptocurrency in Congress.

Richard Hunt, executive chair of the Electronic Payments Coalition, talks about the battle over Capital One buying Discover, how it connects to the Durbin amendment’s restrictions on debit interchange fees, and why the fight over another Durbin legislative proposal on credit cards is so heated.

Neil Stanley, CEO of the CorePoint, offers strategies and products banks can use to attract and retain deposits in a highly competitive deposit environment.

The former Kansas City Fed president talks about the persistence of inflation, when the central bank is likely to lower interest rates, how worried she is about office CRE, the lessons from the failures of three regional banks last year, whether she supports a central bank digital currency, and the future of community banks.