Bank Policy Institute

From the heartland to the financial centers, Americans overwhelmingly reject costly new capital requirements. Protect our economy and #StopBaselEndgame. To learn more, please visit StopBaselEndgame.com.

Mergers enable banks to reach economies of scale, lower their funding costs and reduce risk by diversifying their funding sources. Large regional banks in particular require geographical diversification to compete in a national market. But recent proposals by the OCC and FDIC would make it much harder for large regional banks to compete by discouraging mergers resulting in banks above $50 billion, and particularly over $100 billion, in assets. Such arbitrary size thresholds have no basis in law or sound policy. A new BPI analysis from Francisco Covas, Sarah Flowers and Benjamin Gross illustrates a hypothetical combination of five regional banks to demonstrate the sheer scale needed to replicate the largest U.S. banks’ national geographic diversification and reach. Read it here: https://lnkd.in/ewRFTEPy

Bank examination is in an unseen crisis. While regulations like capital and liquidity requirements are visible, the sheer scale and scope of the banking examination force represent the rest of the iceberg beneath the water’s surface. The banking agencies have increasingly used unaccountable, secret “supervision” rather than public orders and regulation to enforce change at banks. This fundamental problem must be resolved. Read the new blog from Gregory Baer on the bank examination problem and how to improve the broken system: https://lnkd.in/e8A3KfbK

BPI is celebrating six years as an organization 🎉 Since the merging of the Financial Services Roundtable and the Clearing House Association, BPI has published over 350 blog posts, sent 250 comment letters to regulators and testified in front of Congress 15 times. Stay up to date all things BPI here: https://lnkd.in/eGU4ym94

The FDIC has provided minimal transparency about its financial management choices and decision to levy a special assessment on large banks to recoup the costs of invoking the systemic risk exception following the spring 2023 bank failures. The public deserves answers about the FDIC’s choices, especially those that resulted in needlessly higher costs, BPI said in a letter sent today: https://lnkd.in/eC5bK-Tw

Federal Reserve Board Chair Jerome Powell delivered remarks today before the Senate Banking Committee where he previewed the path forward for the Basel III Endgame proposal. BPI President and CEO Gregory Baer issued the following statement. Read more here: https://lnkd.in/g9bJAyEj

Leverage ratios like the supplementary leverage ratio were not meant to be the binding constraints that determine banks’ required amount of capital. But the SLR has become a more binding constraint for the largest U.S. banks – and this is a problem that policymakers should address, as they previously promised to do. The current SLR framework is particularly problematic for a financial system that features a bloated central bank balance sheet and substantial reliance on market intermediation. Read BPI’s new research from Francisco Covas, Sarah Flowers and Brett Waxman: https://lnkd.in/eciDkaCA

🗓️ July 11th 1PM ➡️ CISA’s Incident Reporting Rulemaking: Impacts on Critical Infrastructure Speaker Announcement 📣 Dan Cashman Consolidated Communications, Paul Eisler USTelecom | The Broadband Association, Heather Hogsett Bank Policy Institute, and Sara Friedman, Inside Cybersecurity Register ⬇ https://lnkd.in/eKSrJ_k6

BPI Head of Research Francisco Covas testified at a U.S. House Committee on Financial Services hearing last week on the Federal Reserve’s stress tests. Watch the notable exchanges from his testimony and read more here: https://lnkd.in/ePPh3tT3 #stresstesting #stresstests

BPI’s Head of Research Francisco Covas will testify shortly at a U.S. House Committee on Financial Services subcommittee hearing on the Federal Reserve’s stress tests. The Fed’s stress test models and scenarios should undergo public notice and comment, Covas said in the testimony. The status quo – opaque models, uncertain inputs and volatile results – imposes costs on the economy: fewer loans available for small businesses and other customers, slower employment growth, less market liquidity and a less efficient allocation of capital by banks across the U.S. economy. Read more: https://lnkd.in/ePPh3tT3