The Week Ahead: Regulating the Regulators

On Tuesday, August 3, the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs will hold a full hearing at 9:00 a.m. CDT titled “Oversight of Regulators: Does our Financial System Work for Everyone?”

There are currently approximately 12 agencies regulating the nation’s financial system.

• The Federal Reserve, which sets nation’s monetary policy, regulates banks.
• The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) serves as the supervisory body over all national banks and federal savings associations.
• The National Credit Union Administration (NCUA) regulates credit unions, while the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) insures funds deposited with banks.
• The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) oversees publicly-held companies and the securities markets.
• The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) regulates the U.S. derivatives markets, which includes futures, swaps, and certain kinds of options.
• The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) collects and analyzes information about financial transactions in order to combat domestic and international money laundering, terrorist financing, and other financial crimes.
• The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) regulates member brokerage firms and exchange markets.
• The National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) is the U.S. standard-setting and regulatory support organization created and governed by the chief insurance regulators from the 50 states, the District of Columbia, and five U.S. territories.
• The National Futures Association (NFA) is the self-regulatory organization (SRO) for the U.S. derivatives industry, including on-exchange traded futures, retail off-exchange foreign currency (Forex) and OTC derivatives.
• And of course, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) serves as regulator over consumer financial products and services.

In a 2018 article on Marketplace.com, Hal Scott, international financial systems professor at Harvard Law School, said “I don’t know of another major country that has anything close to it. For instance, to take England by comparison, they have a bank regulator and one market regulator. That’s it. Japan, they have actually a single regulator of everything.”

Will similar streamlining come to our regulatory makeup as well? A panel of witnesses including the Honorable Todd M. Harper, Chairman of the National Credit Union Administration (NCUA); the Honorable Jelena McWilliams, Chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC); and Michael J. Hsu, Acting Comptroller of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) will discuss this and much more this coming Tuesday.

Click here for more information on this event.

Here's what else is happening in The Week Ahead:

• MBA’s Forbearance and Call Volume Survey (Monday)
• U.S. Census Bureau Value of Construction Put in Place Survey (Monday)
• CoreLogic Home Price Index (Wednesday)
• MBA Weekly Applications Survey (Wednesday)
• CoreLogic's Webinar: North American Update (Wednesday)
• Realtor.com Weekly Housing Market Recap (Wednesday)
• Freddie Mac Primary Mortgage Market Survey (Thursday)
• U.S. Department of Labor's Unemployment Insurance Weekly Claims Report (Thursday)
• Black Knight weekly forbearance data (Friday)