John Heltman is the Washington Bureau Chief for American Banker. John previously edited American Banker Magazine and is the creator of American Banker's narrative podcast Bankshot. He was awarded the Grand Neal, the top honor bestowed by the Jesse H. Neal Awards, in 2019 for his narrative podcast series Nobody’s Home, which examines the economic and social impact of concentrated vacant housing. He was also named the 2019 McAllister Editorial Fellow at Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. He is a 2005 graduate of St. Mary’s College of Maryland and lives in Baltimore, Md.
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Vice President Kamala Harris has kept a low profile in banking policy, and there is a reasonable expectation that her administration would pick up where Biden left off. But if she wanted to, Harris could reset Democrats' financial policy agenda.
By John HeltmanJuly 23 -
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell's term expires in 2026, and the chances are good that he will ride off into the sunset. But there is a path for him to be renominated for a third term, and he's defied long political odds before.
By John HeltmanJuly 16 -
The excision of the Chevron doctrine from administrative law is the crest of a wave of litigative enthusiasm that has been building in the banking industry for years. But defanging the administrative state could also establish binding legal precedents that can cut both ways.
By John HeltmanJuly 2 -
The bankruptcy of fintech middleware provider Synapse has left thousands of customers unable to access their savings, with seemingly no one empowered to put it back in their hands. Regulators and lawmakers need to do something about it, but first they need to talk about it.
By John HeltmanJune 25 -
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has been opposed by the financial services industry to a greater or lesser degree since its inception, and its constitutional legitimacy has now been deeply litigated. The bureau could still be dismantled — just not by the courts.
By John HeltmanJune 18 -
Illinois' recent move to prohibit the inclusion of taxes and tips in credit card interchange fees suggests that electronic transactions are too expensive and also that there are too many entities working unilaterally to reduce those costs.
By John HeltmanJune 11 -
A recent white paper from former Federal Reserve Gov. Daniel Tarullo suggests that the stress testing regime should be decoupled from bank capital requirements. But if stress testing isn't an effective means of assigning minimum regulatory capital levels, what is?
By John HeltmanJune 4 -
Getting appointees confirmed by the Senate can be a time-consuming and painstaking process in ideal circumstances, and doing it in an election year amid a scandal is far from ideal. Even so, the White House and Senate Democrats should be motivated to move fast.
By John HeltmanMay 21 -
Community Financial Development Institutions' mission-driven lending has traditionally been a small segment of the lending market. That's beginning to change, but plugging into secondary lending markets might not be the kind of change communities need.
By John HeltmanMay 14 -
Banks rely on fee income to a greater or lesser extent depending on business model, and the Biden administration is intent on cutting consumer fees across the economy. But that push might hamper another administration priority: financial inclusion.
By John HeltmanMay 7