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☆ It's the U.S., not Europe's banking system that's a concern, top economists say
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-31 | by ( Elliot Smith | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +5 min

A central theme at the Ambrosetti Forum in Italy on Thursday and Friday was the potential for further instability in financial markets, arising from problems in the banking sector — particularly against a backdrop of tightening financial conditions. The move of 2018 was part of a broad rollback of banking rules put in place in the aftermath of the crisis. Although lauding the progress made in Europe, Papaconstantinou emphasized that it is too early to tell whether there is broader weakness in the banking system. It is not an environment where we can sit back and say, 'okay, this was just two blips, and we can continue as usual'. "We learnt the lessons of the financial crisis, there's been deep restructuring in this decade, and they are in a stronger position than in the past, obviously."

☆ Premarket stocks: The FDIC could ask big banks to clean up $23 billion mess
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-31 | by ( Nicole Goodkind | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +7 min

While regional and mid-sized banks are behind the recent turmoil, it appears that large banks may be footing the bill. Ultimately, that means higher fees for bank customers and lower rates on their savings accounts. The law also gives the FDIC the authority to decide which banks shoulder the brunt of that assessment fee. Passing it on: Regardless of who’s charged, the fees will eventually get passed on to bank customers in the end, said Isaac. In 2021, Wall Street was estimated to be responsible for 16% of all economic activity in the city.

The White House's push for more regulation comes after days of turmoil in the banking sector after the collapse of U.S. lenders Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank. "This ... is really about making sure that we are protecting the resilience and stability of the banking system going forward," the official added. Silicon Valley bank had $209 billion in assets at the end of last year. According to Federal Reserve data, about 30 banks had assets of more than $100 billion at the end of last year, a list that included Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank. The Fed and other bank regulators have indicated they are already looking to strengthen bank rules, particularly for firms between $100 billion and $250 billion in assets.

☆ Ron DeSantis will spend up to $4 billion on school vouchers for Florida families to challenge 'woke' public schools
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-29 | by ( Ethan Dodd | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Ron DeSantis is waging a war against 'woke' public schools. On Monday, the governor signed universal school vouchers into law, which both conservatives and liberals expect to hurt public schools. Public school enrollment has only dropped a few percentage points, from 89.6% to 87.2%, since Republican Gov. Now, however, DeSantis' move to broaden the voucher program to all Florida families could meaningfully threaten funding for public schools. Spar fears universal vouchers "will literally siphon money away" from public schools because it's all under the same education budget.

☆ Elizabeth Warren and Josh Hawley just teamed up on a bill that would let the government 'clawback lavish pay and bonuses when executives explode their bank'
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-29 | by ( Juliana Kaplan | Ayelet Sheffey | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Elizabeth Warren and Josh Hawley are teaming up to put the heat on executives of failed banks. Mike Braun and Catherine Cortez Masto, introduced a bill called "Failed Bank Executives Clawback Act," which would require that federal regulators "claw back" compensation of executives from the five-year period before their bank fails. "It's time for Congress to step up and strengthen the law so bank executives bear the cost of failure, not line their pockets and walk away scot-free." In the days and weeks following Silicon Valley Bank's collapse, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle — and President Joe Biden — have scrutinized the circumstances that led to the bank's failure. Warren has also pushed to roll back 2018 tweaks to the Dodd-Frank Act, which raised the threshold of holdings that require banks to have greater oversight.

March 28 (Reuters) - The recent failures of mid-size U.S. lenders show the need for more robust risk management at banks and fintechs, along with improved regulation, the head of the top consumer financial watchdog agency said on Tuesday. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Director Rohit Chopra told a gathering of retail bankers in Las Vegas that regulators were looking at liquidity, interest-rate risk management, capital frameworks, resolution planning and stress testing. "It will be good for the industry to have some honest conversations with itself about what is the way for the regulatory framework to not create this type of risk," Chopra said. As head of the CFPB, Chopra also sits on the board of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, which took over failed Silicon Valley Bank earlier this month. He also serves on the Financial Stability Oversight Council, created in the wake of the 2008 crash.

☆ SVB's collapse signals that rollbacks on Dodd-Frank Act were a mistake: Evercore's Roger Altman
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-28 | by ( ) www.cnbc.com time to read: 1 min

Share Share Article via Facebook Share Article via Twitter Share Article via LinkedIn Share Article via EmailSVB's collapse signals that rollbacks on Dodd-Frank Act were a mistake: Evercore's Roger AltmanRoger Altman, Evercore founder and senior chairman, joins 'Closing Bell' to discuss the mounting concerns that led to the Silicon Valley Bank's collapse, the responsibility of the Fed to act on warnings about SVB's mismanagement, and more.

☆ SVB failure is a ‘textbook case of mismanagement,’ top Fed regulator tells Congress
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-27 | by ( Matt Egan | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +3 min

“SVB’s failure is a textbook case of mismanagement,” Barr says in testimony to be delivered before the Senate Banking Committee. “Our banking system is sound and resilient, with strong capital and liquidity,” Barr said. In his testimony, Barr discloses that near the end of 2021, bank supervisors found “deficiencies” in the bank’s liquidity risk management. That resulted in six supervisory findings linked to SVB’s liquidity stress testing, contingency funding and liquidity risk management. Barr said the Fed will weigh whether the applying those tougher rules to SVB would have helped the bank manage the risks that led to its failure.

☆ 15 places to live that will save you money in inflationary America
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-27 | by ( Ethan Dodd | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +1 min

Inflation is still high, even though the housing market has cooled some. From South Texas to South Dakota, here are 15 places with the lowest cost of living in America. The rankings and reviews site Niche just released its 2023 list of places with the lowest cost of living in America. However, the increased cost of living hasn't hit the country equally across the board. Here are the 15 lowest cost of living places in the United States, many of which are in South Texas.

☆ First came bank failures. Now comes the House hearing
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-26 | by ( Krystal Hur | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +6 min

New York CNN —Federal regulators are being called to testify before the House Financial Services Committee on Tuesday about the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank. What lawmakers are saying: Elected officials want a review of what happened at Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank earlier this month, as well as stricter regulations to prevent it from happening again. Regulators on March 12, just days after SVB collapsed, announced a guarantee of all deposits at the bank and Signature Bank. What to expect: It’s unclear what will come of the hearings on SVB and Signature Bank. Wednesday: The House Financial Services Committee’s hearing on the banking crisis continues for a second day.

College enrollment has declined over the last decade. Here are three reasons why college enrollment may have collapsed. Why learn when you can earnThe robust labor market may have also contributed to college enrollment falling. Such attacks on colleges over the years might have caused Republicans to question the skill benefits of a college education. Did you get a job without a college degree?

☆ You no longer need a college degree to work at these 7 companies
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-25 | by ( Ethan Dodd | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Persistent labor shortages are causing more and more companies to drop degree requirements. That gap represents millions of potential workers who could do a great job even if they don't have a college degree. Now, a number of companies have scrapped degree requirements to widen their net and diversify their workforce. As more companies cut degree requirements, Burning Glass Institute predicts another 1.4 million jobs will open to these workers in the next five years. Here are seven companies who've dropped degree requirements and are leading this skill-based sea change in the job market.

☆ 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. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's funding structure is constitutional, a Manhattan appeals court ruled on Thursday, as the U.S. Supreme Court prepares to consider the issue next term. Circuit Court of Appeals finding the CFPB's funding unconstitutional. Circuit Court Judge Richard Sullivan said the constitution only requires that expenditures be authorized by an act of Congress. U.S. Supreme Court decisions and historical principles of congressional spending support that conclusion, he wrote. Circuit Court of Appeals, No.

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.

☆ Big investor in Credit Suisse bonds says 'bail-in' system worked
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-22 | by ( Herbert Lash | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

The firm's exposure to Credit Suisse AT1s represented 1.32% of Spectrum's assets under management (AUM) on Feb. 28. In 2021 and early 2022 Spectrum held about $400 million of Credit Suisse AT1 bonds, Jacoby said. The Credit Suisse debt represents about 12% of the benchmark for CoCos, a massive slice of the ICE BofA U.S. dollar contingent capital index (.MERCOCO), he said. "We had been paring back in Credit Suisse, had an internal negative outlook for a little over a year." "This is a Credit Suisse event and this is a Swiss bank regulation event, this is not a global disaster for CoCos."

☆ The Fed's latest move confirms it's trying to thread the needle between cooling inflation and helping banks in turmoil
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-22 | by ( Ayelet Sheffey | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

The Federal Reserve raised interest rates by 25 basis points on Wednesday. It's the second interest rate increase this year. It comes on the heels of Silicon Valley Bank's collapse, which prompted some calls to pause the rate hikes. "We expect 2023 to be a year of significant decline in inflation," Powell said in February. So while the committee is slowing interest rate hikes for now, they plan to continue increases this year.

☆ Market nerves tie US rate-setters’ hands
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-22 | by ( Ben Winck | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

On Wednesday the central bank raised interest rates a quarter point. The failure of Silicon Valley Bank nearly two weeks ago upended the U.S. financial system, and the Fed and other agencies have had to provide a steadying hand. But by Wednesday morning, just before the central bank’s decision, the futures market was mostly pricing in a 25 basis point hike. Futures contracts tracking the central bank’s benchmark rate have also been shaky. Wall Street reforms passed in 2010 crystallized the central bank's duty to foster a stable financial system.

☆ Interest rate decision: What to expect from the Fed meeting
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-22 | by ( Christine Romans | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +5 min

Among the choices, the Fed could continue its aggressive rate-hike campaign to cool inflation that is running at triple the central bank’s target of 2%. Warren — already a critic of the Fed’s inflation fight — leveled further blistering criticism of the Republican Fed chief. In addition to achieving price stability and financial stability, the Fed’s broader mandate includes supervision of individual financial institutions, Leer says, and “that’s where the failure lies. “The Fed needs to secure both price stability and financial stability, something that it has failed to so recently,” he told CNN. And this Fed chief inherited an unprecedented economy.

☆ Elizabeth Warren demands Fed crackdown on large regional banks
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-22 | by ( Matt Egan | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +5 min

New York CNN —Senator Elizabeth Warren is cranking up the pressure on the Federal Reserve following the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank. Both Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank fit into that asset threshold when they failed earlier this month. The bipartisan 2018 rollback of Dodd-Frank freed large regional banks in that range of assets from the toughest oversight. Notably, the letter was signed by Senator Angus King, the Maine independent who voted in favor of the 2018 rollback. Days after the bank failures, the Federal Reserve launched a review of the regulation and oversight of Silicon Valley Bank.

☆ Democrats, Republicans, and companies all seem to agree: college degrees aren't the future
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-22 | by ( Ethan Dodd | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

A bachelor's degree has become a common requirement for landing US jobs, even those that didn't previously require one. Josh Shapiro signed an executive order opening up 92%, or roughly 65,000, of state jobs to those without college degrees. They urged more states to follow to move the economy away from a preference for college degrees, restoring a sense of fairness many Americans feel is lost. Oregon also issued a temporary order in 2022 allowing those without bachelor's degrees to work as substitute teachers. A college degree may increase your earning potential, but it may not hold the keys to the middle class for much longer.

☆ What would a federal expansion of deposit insurance look like?
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-22 | by ( Ramishah Maruf | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +7 min

That’s the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation’s standard limit, meaning any bank deposits up to that amount are protected by the independent government agency. But now there’s growing support for raising that insurance cap. A higher insurance cap doesn’t automatically mean banks will be subject to tighter regulations, Dollar noted, but there could be some call for it. The FDIC insurance limit has been raised seven times since 1950 — and $250,000 also isn’t a calculated number, Collins said. In 2008, the FDIC used the same system for temporary unlimited deposit insurance guarantee on certain accounts.

☆ Hardline US Republicans oppose bank deposit guarantees beyond $250,000 limit
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-21 | by ( David Lawder | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

[1/3] A sign reads “FDIC Insured” on the door of a branch of First Republic Bank in Boston, Massachusetts, U.S., March 13, 2023. REUTERS/Brian SnyderWASHINGTON, March 20 (Reuters) - Hardline Republicans in the House of Representatives on Monday vowed to oppose any universal federal guarantee on bank deposits above the current $250,000 limit, throwing a major roadblock to a key tool regulators could deploy if bank runs re-emerge as financial confidence wobbles. The upheaval has been marked by uninsured business depositors fleeing smaller community and regional lenders toward the largest banks perceived as "too big to fail." Independent Community Bankers Association President Rebeca Romero Rainey said in a statement that depositors in safely run small banks should get the same guarantees that uninsured depositors in SVB and Signature Bank received. Runs could re-emerge if another bank falters, and if the institution is large enough, regulators will again declare a systemic risk exception and guarantee its uninsured deposits, he added.

☆ Honduran official: US 'respects' decision on China relations
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-21 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

TEGUCIGALPA, March 20 (Reuters) - The U.S. government said it "respects" Honduras' decision to move towards establishing formal diplomatic ties with China, the Honduran Foreign Minister Enrique Reina said on Monday after a meeting with U.S. officials. Reina said Honduras' President Xiomara Castro made "general comments" on the decision during the meeting attended by different officials such as U.S. Special Presidential Adviser for the Americas Chris Dodd. Castro announced last week the country would seek diplomatic ties with Beijing, a move that risks further reducing Taiwan's pool of allies as China does not allow countries with which it has diplomatic relations to maintain official ties with Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as its own territory with no right to state-to-state ties, a position Taiwan strongly disputes. Since 2016, when Tsai Ing-wen was elected Taiwan's president, Panama, El Salvador and most recently, Nicaragua, have opted to establish relations with China.

☆ Silicon Valley Bank's collapse is looming over the Fed as it makes the next move in its war on inflation this week
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-21 | by ( Ayelet Sheffey | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Democrats have been targeting Fed Chair Powell over his role in the bank's shutdown. The first is to remind Chair Powell: he has a dual mandate. Her second point, she said, was that raising interest rates does not solve issues like price gouging or the Ukraine invasion. During a Senate hearing earlier this month, Powell responded to Warren's questioning on interest rates costing jobs. "Will working people be better off if we just walk away from our jobs and inflation remains 5%-6%?"

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