“There’s No Guarantee the Fed’s Rate Cuts Will Lower the Rates That Matter”
This week’s quarter-point rate cut came with a divided FOMC vote, underscoring how elusive consensus has become and highlighting the challenges President Trump’s nominee for Fed chair will face. A separate concern is the effectiveness of monetary policy itself: heavy Treasury issuance, large federal deficits, and shifting global demand for U.S. debt mean policy-rate cuts don’t always translate into cheaper borrowing for households or businesses.
“How Your Bank Can Stop the Deposit Drain to Crypto Exchanges Like Coinbase”
With roughly one in five U.S. adults now owning or using crypto and a global market exceeding $3 trillion, banks continue to lose deposits and payments to digital-asset platforms. This article encourages banks to respond with integrated digital-asset accounts, crypto rewards, and analytics that track outflows to firms like Coinbase and PayPal, among other measures.
“Why Community and Regional Banks Are Built to Win at Automation”
Community and regional banks’ local-market knowledge and lean decision-making structures yield a unique advantage in automating processes, freeing up staff to focus on higher-value work such as relationships and risk management, one expert says.
“OCC, FDIC Scrap Obama-Era Leveraged Lending Guidance”
The OCC and FDIC withdrew their 2013 leveraged lending guidance, calling it “overly restrictive” and claiming it pushed higher-risk loans into private credit. Banks will now be expected to manage leveraged exposures under general safety-and-soundness principles and define “leveraged loans” themselves.
“Charter Application Boom a ‘Return to Norm’ for OCC: Gould”
OCC Comptroller Jonathan Gould said the 14 de novo charter applications filed this year mark a return to normal levels after a long spell of limited activity. Many involve national trust charters from crypto-related firms, which have drawn criticism from groups wary of expanding custody activities without deposit insurance. But Gould described these services as a natural extension of long-standing electronic-safekeeping roles.
“Treasury’s Bank Regulation Takeover Has a New Goal: Anti-Money-Laundering Rules”
Treasury is seeking a leading role in rewriting AML rules, the latest move in a broader campaign to shift regulatory authority away from prudential agencies. The change could lead to more prescriptive reporting and due diligence expectations and tighter coordination with the Fed, OCC, and FDIC.
“Porn Has a Debanking Problem”
A preliminary OCC report identified adult entertainment as among the industries facing unwarranted “debanking” driven by reputational concerns. Advocates were surprised by the acknowledgment, given the sector’s limited political support and past scrutiny from cultural conservatives.
In Other News
Outgoing SEC Commissioner Caroline Crenshaw warned that deregulation could echo risks seen before the 1929 crash, Sam Altman issued a “code red” for OpenAI, and McDonald’s pulled a Christmas ad in the Netherlands after viewers labeled it “creepy” and “AI slop.”