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Staffing shortages strained supervisory resources, particularly at the FDIC's New York regional office, in the years leading up to the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank in March, both regulators said. Both the Fed and FDIC highlighted that their oversight ranks grew leaner even as the institutions they were tasked with reviewing grew larger and more complex. At the Fed, supervisory hours at SVB declined at the same time the Santa Clara, California-based bank was experiencing rapid growth starting in 2017. While the Fed had 15 full-time employees staffed on the supervisory team for SVB, the bank received fewer supervisory resources through 2021 compared to similar banks. "Examination resource shortages, particularly in the New York region, are a mission-critical risk that will require a sustained whole-of-agency response," the FDIC said.

Signature Bank's failure took only marginally longer. "The number 36 has just been, you know, branded in my brain," Atlanta Fed President Raphael Bostic told Reuters earlier this month. "I think that any time you have a bank failure like this, bank management clearly failed, supervisors failed and our regulatory system failed," Barr told U.S. lawmakers in a hearing in March. "It's how do we allow a bank whose failure threatened the financial system to persist without being subject to more aggressive intervention?" "One thing for certain ... this was a very significant supervisory failure," Tarullo said at the Peterson Institute for International Economics event on Wednesday.

[1/2] Representations of cryptocurrencies and Voyager Digital logo are seen in this illustration taken, July 7, 2022. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/IllustrationsApril 25 (Reuters) - Binance.US has called off its $1.3 billion deal to buy assets of bankrupt crypto lender Voyager Digital, citing a "hostile and uncertain regulatory climate." "The hostile and uncertain regulatory climate in the United States has introduced an unpredictable operating environment impacting the entire American business community," a spokesperson for Binance.US said in a statement. "We are focused on creating a safe platform where our customers can participate in the digital asset economy." The company had initially agreed to sell its assets to major digital asset exchange FTX, but that deal fell apart when FTX imploded in November.

☆ The bad loan term that's back for banks trying to spot a recession
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-23 | by ( Tim Mullaney | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +4 min

If there wasn't enough banking jargon to blind you, it's time to learn a new piece of it: Welcome to the industry's era of the "criticized loan." "Criticized loans could be paying or performing but a loan could be singled out because of its collateral." At Bank of America, criticized loans to office building projects rose to $3.7 billion out of $19 billion in office loans. But office buildings represent only a quarter of the bank's commercial real estate loans, and all CRE is just 7% of the bank's total loans and leases. "It's almost impossible for us to see office [losses] more than 4 or 5 percent of office loans.

[1/4] A view of the Park Avenue location of the First Republic Bank, in New York City, U.S., March 10, 2023. FDIC regulators had raised the specter of systemic risk from the failure of large regional banks months before the SVB and Signature Bank collapses, records reviewed by Reuters show. SECRETS REVEALEDThe Fed will release its report on SVB at 11 a.m. EDT (1500 GMT) on Friday. FDIC Chair Martin Gruenberg has not provided much detail about the supervision of Signature, which like SVB had grown rapidly in recent years. The Fed's inspector general will have a report on each bank in the third quarter.

☆ Fed Governor Bowman casts doubt on the need for a U.S. digital dollar
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-18 | by ( Jeff Cox | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

Federal Reserve Governor Michelle Bowman expressed skepticism over the possibility of a digital U.S. dollar, noting Tuesday the multiple risks such a system could impose. For the past few years, Fed officials have been studying whether to join a handful of other central banks to implement its own type of cryptocurrency. However, she said an interest-bearing Fed digital dollar could provide harmful competition for banks, limiting their ability to lend. Like other Fed officials, Bowman said the looming implementation of the FedNow payments system also will address many of the needs cited by central bank digital currency promoters. Perhaps the CBDC's biggest Fed advocate has since left the central bank: Former Governor Lael Brainard is now director of the National Economic Council.

April 17 (Reuters) - The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday charged cryptocurrency exchange Bittrex Inc and its former CEO William Shihara with operating an unregistered national securities exchange, broker and clearing agency. The SEC also charged Bittrex's foreign affiliate, Bittrex Global GmbH, for failing to register as a national securities exchange in connection with its operation of a single shared order book along with Bittrex. Shihara and a representative for Bittrex did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Seattle-based Bittrex had previously announced it would shutter its U.S. operations effective April 30 due to "continued regulatory uncertainty." Gensler has previously said that companies that help facilitate transactions in the cryptocurrency market should register with the SEC like other market intermediaries.

WASHINGTON, April 14 (Reuters) - The Federal Reserve's Board of Governors on Friday said it has approved UBS Group AG's acquisition of the U.S. subsidiaries of Credit Suisse, clearing another major hurdle for the completion of the Swiss-brokered rescue deal. UBS has committed to give the U.S. central bank an implementation plan for combining its U.S. business and operations with those of Credit Suisse within three months of consummating the deal, the Fed's Board said in a statement. UBS agreed to buy Credit Suisse for 3 billion Swiss francs ($3.3 billion), a fraction of its earlier market value. UBS has said it expects the deal to create a business with more than $5 trillion in total invested assets. Under the takeover deal, holders of Credit Suisse AT1 bonds will get nothing, while shareholders, who usually rank below bondholders in compensation terms, will receive $3.23 billion.

[1/2] U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chairman Gary Gensler testifies before a House Financial Services and General Government Subcommittee hearing on President Biden's budget request for the Securities and Exchange Commission, on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., March 29, 2023. Many in the industry have said existing securities regulations are inappropriate and the sector needs fresh rules. Some DeFi platforms may fall under the proposed definition, but others may already be considered exchanges by the existing one, SEC officials said this week. "Make no mistake: many crypto trading platforms already come under the current definition of an exchange," SEC Chair Gary Gensler said in prepared remarks published on Friday. Most crypto trading platforms meet that definition, regardless of whether they call themselves decentralized, Gensler said.

[1/2] The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp (FDIC) logo is seen at the FDIC headquarters in Washington, February 23, 2011. Here is what is known about the assessment and the insurance fund:What is the Deposit Insurance Fund? The law does not define the "assessment base" for the special assessment or which banks will pay it. Who will pay the special assessment? Top officials in Washington have signaled that regulators likely won't make the smaller banks pay for last month's failures this time round either.

The latter could slam global growth back to about 1% this year, effectively a recession on a per-capita GDP basis. 'PERILOUS' RISKSThe IMF's Global Financial Stability Report warned of a "perilous combination of vulnerabilities" in financial markets, saying that some participants had failed to adequately prepare for the impact of interest rate increases. Despite the warnings, the IMF's chief economist, Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas, said inflation is still the bigger problem and that price stability should take precedence over financial stability risks for central banks' monetary policy. Only in the event of a very severe financial crisis should those priorities be reversed, he said in a news conference. She added that the global financial system was also resilient due to reforms enacted after the 2008 financial crisis.

In its latest Global Financial Stability Report, the IMF said global financial stability risks had increased "rapidly" in the six months since its previous assessment when it was already touting hazards as being "significantly skewed" to the downside. The IMF said the bank failures "have been a powerful reminder" of the challenges wrought by tighter monetary policy - and the more stringent financial conditions it generated - and the buildup in vulnerabilities since the global financial crisis more than a decade ago. Problems at U.S. regional banks grew last year, as rapidly rising interest rates slashed the value of some banks' holdings in long-term assets such as home loans and government bonds. Going forward, regional banks could face greater scrutiny with respect to their holdings and funding structures, the IMF cautioned. Even still, authorities should be more prepared to deal with financial instability, the IMF recommended, including by strengthening their bank resolution regimes.

March 30 (Reuters) - Wells Fargo & Co (WFC.N) will pay fines of about $97.8 million for inadequate oversight of its compliance risks, enabling the apparent violation of U.S. sanctions against Iran, Syria and Sudan, federal authorities said on Thursday. The Fed fined Wells Fargo $67.8 million, while OFAC fined the bank $30 million for inadequate oversight of its compliance risks from 2010 to 2015. “Wells Fargo is pleased to resolve this legacy matter involving conduct that ended in 2015, which we voluntarily self-reported and fully cooperated with OFAC and the Federal Reserve Board to address," a Wells Fargo spokesperson said in a statement. In a release, OFAC said that Wells Fargo and its predecessor, Wachovia Bank, provided a European bank with software beginning in 2008 that allowed the firm to process 124 transactions involving sanctioned individuals or jurisdictions. In December, the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau hit Wells Fargo with the watchdog's largest ever civil penalty as part of a $3.7 billion agreement to settle charges over widespread mismanagement of car loans, mortgages and bank accounts.

REUTERS/Kevin LamarqueMarch 29 (Reuters) - The scope of blame for Silicon Valley Bank's failure stretches across bank executives, Federal Reserve supervisors and other regulators, the banking system's top cop on Wednesday told U.S. lawmakers demanding answers for the lender's swift collapse. "I think that any time you have a bank failure like this, bank management clearly failed, supervisors failed and our regulatory system failed," Michael Barr, Fed Vice Chair for Supervision, told Congress. 'SOME REAL FLAWS'Barr told the House Financial Services Committee that he first became aware of stress at Silicon Valley Bank on the afternoon of March 9, but that the bank reported to supervisors that morning that deposits were stable. The Fed was in discussions with Silicon Valley Bank the day before its collapse to move pledgable collateral to the discount window, a key facility long associated with providing emergency loans to banks, Barr said on Wednesday. "(Fed) staff were working with Silicon Valley Bank basically all afternoon and evening and through the morning the next day to pledge as much collateral as humanly possible to the discount (window) on Friday," Barr said.

March 29 (Reuters) - The Federal Reserve was in discussions with Silicon Valley Bank the day before its collapse to move pledgable collateral to the discount window, a key facility long associated with providing emergency loans to banks, the Fed's head of banking supervision told a Congressional committee on Wednesday. Fed Vice Chairman for Supervision Michael Barr said he first became aware of stress at Silicon Valley Bank on the afternoon of March 9, but that the bank reported to supervisors that morning that deposits were stable. "(Fed) staff were working with Silicon Valley Bank basically all afternoon and evening and through the morning the next day to pledge as much collateral as humanly possible to the discount (window) on Friday," Barr said to the House Financial Services Committee. Barr told the Senate Banking Committee he first became aware of the interest rate risk issues at SVB in mid-February, while Fed supervisors had been raising issues with the bank directly in months prior to that. Some Democrats have also argued a 2018 bank deregulation law is to blame.

"I think that any time you have a bank failure like this, bank management clearly failed, supervisors failed and our regulatory system failed," Michael Barr, Fed Vice Chair for Supervision, told Congress. REPORTS DUE MAY 1Both the Fed and FDIC are is expected to produce reports on the failure of Silicon Valley Bank by May 1. Barr told the House Financial Services Committee that he first became aware of stress at Silicon Valley Bank on the afternoon of March 9, but that the bank reported to supervisors that morning that deposits were stable. Gruenberg of the FDIC told lawmakers he also became aware of SVB's stress that Thursday evening. "(Fed) staff were working with Silicon Valley Bank basically all afternoon and evening and through the morning the next day to pledge as much collateral as humanly possible to the discount (window) on Friday," Barr said.

WASHINGTON, March 28 (Reuters) - Lawmakers are expected to put top U.S. bank regulators on the defensive over the unexpected failures of regional lenders Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank when they testify before Congress on Tuesday. Regulators have vowed to review their rules and procedures after the twin failures while insisting the overall system remains sound. Tuesday's hearing at the Senate Banking Committee will give lawmakers the chance to press watchdogs on what went wrong on their watch, and push preferred policy prescriptions. They just didn't," said Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, the top Republican on the Senate Banking Committee, at a banking industry conference last week. Some Democrats, including major bank critic Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, have also argued a 2018 bank deregulation law is to blame.

March 27 (Reuters) - The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp (FDIC) and its flagship deposit insurance fund have been active since the Great Depression to provide an orderly resolution for failed banks and to reimburse certain customer accounts. Here's what you need to know about the fund and how it works:WHAT IS THE DEPOSIT INSURANCE FUND? The FDIC's deposit insurance fund helps to fulfill the agency's guarantee of bank deposits up to $250,000. As of the end of last year, the deposit insurance fund balance stood at $128.2 billion. The FDIC by law is required to resolve failed banks using the least costly option to minimize losses to its deposit insurance fund.

Discussions between the SEC and Coinbase broke down in recent weeks, with one source saying the two sides had moved "further apart." The crypto industry believes it operates in a regulatory gray area not governed by existing U.S. securities laws - and that new legislation is needed to regulate the industry. "But if necessary, we welcome the opportunity for Coinbase and the broader crypto community to get clarity in court." Prior to Gensler's arrival, the SEC engaged in targeted enforcement, but the Democratic chair has ratcheted up focus on crypto platforms themselves. "There couldn't be a more significant development for crypto markets and crypto investors," said Philip Moustakis, former SEC enforcement lawyer and partner with Seward and Kissel LLP in New York.

☆ Key lawmakers say upcoming hearings on bank failures aim to boost U.S. confidence in banking sector
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-24 | by ( Chelsey Cox | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +4 min

WASHINGTON — A bipartisan group of lawmakers overseeing the recent turmoil in the banking sector said Wednesday that they aim to increase Americans' confidence in the banking industry after Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank collapsed over the last two weeks. Regulators and lawmakers are also trying to contain further damage to the economy and reinforce confidence in the banking system. Sen. Tim Scott, a South Carolina Republican and ranking member of the Senate Banking Committee, also said writing new laws should take a back seat at the hearings to investigating what happened. We can't legislate that either in the financial sector or among financial institutions management, nor with the regulators." Sen. Sherrod Brown, an Ohio Democrat and chairman of Senate Banking Committee, compared the SVB collapse to the devastating train crash in East Palestine, Ohio.

March 23 (Reuters) - The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday issued an investor alert warning that firms offering crypto asset securities may not be complying with U.S. laws. Unregistered offerings of such securities may not provide important data, including audited financial statements, for informed decision making, the SEC said. The securities watchdog has been cracking down on the crypto industry, which its chair has called a "Wild West" riddled with misconduct. Crypto exchange Coinbase (COIN.O) announced on Wednesday that it had received a Wells notice - a formal declaration that SEC staff intend to recommend an enforcement action. "Crypto asset entities might use these in lieu of audited financial statements in order to obscure and confuse customers about the safety of their assets," the SEC said.

☆ Treasury's Janet Yellen rains on Jay Powell's parade
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-23 | by ( Bob Pisani | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell's press conference Wednesday threaded the needle almost perfectly. By the time Powell ended the press conference around 3:15 p.m. Both Yellen and Powell have been at great pains to say that deposits are safe, and by so doing are implying an implicit backstop for deposits. Powell, in his press conference, said "I think depositors should assume that their deposits are safe." But in her testimony Wednesday, Yellen said the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) was not considering providing "blanket insurance" for all banking deposits.

Currently, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp (FDIC)guarantees deposits of up to $250,000 per person, per bank. More than $9.2 trillion of U.S. bank deposits were uninsured at the end of last year, accounting for more than 40% of all deposits, according to U.S. central bank data. COULD THE GOVERNMENT RAISE THE DEPOSIT INSURANCE LIMIT? Some U.S. lawmakers have said Congress should consider whether a higher federal insurance limit on bank deposits was needed in the wake of the collapse of SVB and Signature Bank. Senator Elizabeth Warren, a Democrat, and Senator Mike Rounds, a Republican, have questioned whether the $250,000 deposit insurance limit is still appropriate.

While big banks have dominated headlines, the country's 4,258 community banks, which are more risk-averse, account for more than 90% of all chartered banks. Her comments marked a shift in emphasis to include community banks that were not mentioned in her earlier testimony. "The community banks in this country, we know, are strong and resilient. Yellen's shift to include community banks "was certainly better, it was an attempt for her to kind of restate what she was saying and acknowledging the importance of the community banks," Williams said. Community banks play an important political role.

"The bank run has abated for the moment, but that might be contingent on what the Fed signals today," said Adam Button, chief currency analyst at ForexLive in Toronto. "The risk is that the (Federal Open Market Committee) shatters the fragile calm in markets today... by acting too aggressively." The Fed meeting concludes on Wednesday with the 2 p.m. EDT (1800 GMT) release of a policy statement followed half an hour later by a news conference by Powell. Christopher Wong, currency strategist at OCBC, said the focus will be on how the Fed communicates its forward guidance, in particular "the higher for longer" rhetoric. The Japanese yen weakened 0.20% to 132.80 per dollar, while the Australian dollar rose 0.07% to $0.667.

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