On Friday, March 21, The Securities and Exchange Commission’s Crypto Task Force held its inaugural roundtable, “How We Got Here and How We Get Out – Defining Security Status.” Our Benjamin Schiffrin, Director of Securities Policy, is a member of the Task Force and took part in the roundtable.
The Financial Times’ Robert Armstrong‘s latest story covers the Federal Reserve and its role in our current economic situation. He references the work of Better Markets and its recent report on the Federal Reserve and systematic instability. Below is an excerpt from the piece: It is useful, then, when the case against the Fed is framed […]
The Financial Times’ Gillian Tett‘s latest column covers the Federal Reserve’s failures following the 2008 financial crisis. She references the work of Better Markets and its recent report on the Federal Reserve and systematic instability. Below is an excerpt from the piece: A recent report from the American lobby group Better Markets outlines the wider […]
In an excellent story by John Cassidy of the New Yorker, the outlet covers how the demise of FTX should inform how we regulate crypto. He talks to Better Markets CEO Dennis Kelleher about why the crypto industry wants the CFTC as its regulator and the influence of Washington’s revolving door. You can find the […]
In an outstanding piece by Robin Wigglesworth of the Financial Times, the outlet covers the CFTC’s failures when it comes to FTX. Better Markets’ work on FTX’s collapse is cited. Below are several excerpts from the story: Yes, the CFTC might not have been able to prevent the FTX debacle. Frauds happen. But the agency […]
Climate change threatens to upend the global social and economic order and can impact virtually every aspect of the economy and financial system. The risks from climate change to the banking and financial system must be appropriately addressed now. The U.S. banking regulatory agencies remain woefully behind in addressing climate-related risks. Their counterparts at the […]
Dennis recently did his first Ask Me Anything on Reddit. In the r/GME community, he answered questions from Redditors about the ongoing GameStop phenomena, the growing interest in SPACS and daily efforts advocating for a fairer financial and economic system for all Americans. Read his answers to many great questions asked by Redditors in a two-part […]
Better Markets provides insights and perspectives on recent events at the SEC in the following op-eds and press releases. Read below to learn more about the confirmation of Gary Gensler as the new SEC Chair and steps he needs to take to help Main Street Americans; the appointment and sudden resignation of his new Enforcement Director; […]
Welling on Wall Street featured an in-depth conversation with Dennis Kelleher, Co-founder, President and CEO of Better Markets, in its April 2021 issue. In the wide-ranging interview, Dennis discussed the confirmation of Gary Gensler as SEC chair and the potential impact on that agency’s enforcement activities; his testimony at the House Financial Services Committee hearing on the […]
Better Markets’ President and CEO Dennis Kelleher recently made the case for a new Department of Economic Security responsible for securing the financial stability of American workers, expanding opportunity and rebuilding the middle class. Read more in his CNN op-ed.
Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), ranking member of the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, recently joined Better Markets’ President and CEO Dennis Kelleher for an insightful discussion on the current state of financial reform during a webinar presented by Better Markets. The webinar, “President Trump’s Deregulation of Wall Street Making Catastrophe More Likely,” was […]
Last week, Deutsche Bank Chief Financial Officer, James von Moltke, published a letter in The American Banker responding to our Op Ed the week before last. In our Op Ed, we discussed Deutsche Bank’s reported intent to decrease capital and return that capital to its shareholders. We said that would be irresponsible and jeopardize the […]
Listen to Dennis Kelleher as he talks about Wall Street and how the economic needs of the American people are going to express themselves politically, one way or another (read his piece in The Hill: “Wall Street should support an Elizabeth Warren for president“). The American Dream is slipping away for many Americans. Better Markets […]
by Dennis Kelleher (this op-ed first appeared in The Hill) As we approach the 10th anniversary of the collapse of Lehman Brothers on Sep. 15 and the onset of the worst economic calamity since the Great Depression of the 1930s, the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco released a new study on the lasting and ongoing impact of that financial […]
By Dennis Kelleher, President and CEO of Better Markets (this op-ed first appeared on Medium) Ever notice how Wall Street’s biggest banks and their lobbyists, lawyers and various other allies and advocates don’t mention that they are in the business of pursuing their self-interest in maximizing revenues, profits and bonuses? Instead, they talk about lending to Main […]
By Dennis Kelleher, President and CEO of Better Markets (this op-ed first appeared on Medium) Most people can readily understand and relate to social issues and individual rights, which have been the focus since President Trump announced his nomination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. However, a Justice Kavanaugh will also almost certainly move […]
In December 2016, Better Markets president and CEO, Dennis Kelleher, detailed in an American Banker Op Ed “How Wells Fargo Proves It’s Not a Wall Street Villain.” We communicated these recommendations to the highest levels of Wells Fargo, encouraging them to do the right thing rather than only after forced to do so by regulators, […]
Patrick Jenkins and guests discuss the merits of putting former Goldman Sachs banker Gary Cohn in charge of US deregulation, Lloyds bank’s review of HBOS fraud customers, and Italian banking as UniCredit goes to the market and Intesa ponders a takeover of Generali. With special guest Dennis Kelleher. You can listen to the podcast here.
“Since Wells Fargo’s alleged crimes are so easy to understand by the public, the bank’s executives and directors are all sitting ducks to shoulder the blame for general grievances with Wall Street’s biggest banks. “The irony, of course, is that Wells Fargo is not one of those Wall Street banks. It’s actually the type of […]
“I don’t think this is a political issue and it isn’t a partisan issue,” said Mr Weiss. “It is a question of the basic functioning of US debt markets.” Read the full Financial Times article by Joe Rennison here.
Wells Fargo & Co. has told some employees to stop cross-selling products to customers, while the Senate Banking Committee’s Republican majority said late Monday it plans a hearing into the bank’s sales practices. The committee intends to question Wells Fargo Chief Executive John Stumpf about the events that led the bank to pay a $185 million fine and […]
Wells Fargo is facing calls to claw back bonuses paid to senior executives, including the outgoing head of its community banking division, as the fallout over its sham account scandal intensifies. Two top institutional shareholders in the world’s most valuable bank by market capitalisation have demanded answers over payments to Carrie Tolstedt, who headed the division where the episode […]
Wells Fargo & Co’s WFC -0.37% “sandbagger”-in-chief is leaving the giant bank with an enormous pay day—$124.6 million. In fact, despite beefed-up “clawback” provisions instituted by the bank shortly after the financial crisis, and the recent revelations of massive misconduct, it does not appear that Wells Fargo is requiring Carrie Tolstedt, the Wells Fargo executive who was in charge of […]
Julie Miller was working in Pennsylvania for Wachovia when Wells Fargo took over the Charlotte bank in 2008 and began changing more than the name on its branches. Miller said she watched with dismay as Wells Fargo increased her branch’s sales goals and lowered bonuses for meeting the new targets. The changes took place around […]
Ask Kweku Adoboli why bankers do not go to jail, and he would no doubt look surprised. A London-based trader at the Swiss bank UBS, Adoboli was jailed in November 2012 for what police described as the biggest fraud in UK history. He racked up £1.2bn of losses through secretive trades – and at one […]
Four months before she jumped into the presidential race, Hillary Clinton spent a lunch hour in a Midtown New York City conference room huddling with a dozen of the world’s leading economists and left-leaning policymakers. The group—assembled by former Loral CEO Bernard Schwartz, and which included former Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker, former Fed vice […]
There was a time when one had to wait at least 20 years between big banking crises. Perhaps this was because the generation that had learnt the hard way had to retire before the next crop could repeat the mistakes of their elders. This is no longer the case. Business leaders who were present at […]
Law360, New York (August 29, 2016, 1:47 PM ET) — A Wall Street watchdog group on Friday urged the U.S. Supreme Court to take on a case seeking to overturn a Sixth Circuit decision that blocked a whistleblower suit alleging foreclosure fraud at U.S. Bank NA. Better Markets said in its brief that the Sixth Circuit’s March ruling, […]
In the face of a fierce lobbying campaign, the U.S. Labor Department backed down in 2010 from a sweeping proposal to change how broker-dealers and investment advisers render advice on retirement accounts. Six years later, with that rule set to take effect next April, the fight over the so-called “fiduciary rule” is heading to court. On Thursday, […]
The Securities and Exchange Commission is caught in the middle of a regulatory tug of war in its final months under President Obama. The financial industry and advocates for tougher rules on Wall Street are jockeying for influence over the agency’s unfinished agenda. Financial regulators across the board have been working on a slew of […]
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s latest proposed rule has been met with nearly universal scorn by the financial industry. It could soon turn into a legal challenge. Though the open comment period on the so-called arbitration rule ended Monday and the bureau has received thousands of comments, the fight is only heating up. The rule […]
With the Labor Department’s fiduciary rule slated to take effect in April, industry opponents are hinging their hopes on stalling or blocking the regulation through three separate legal challenges. But in the meantime, they’re also planning for another possibility: full implementation of the rule. “Almost every company we’ve talked to since the rule has come […]
I recently sat down for lunch with Dennis Kelleher, the president and chief executive of Better Markets, which Kelleher describes as “an independent, nonpartisan, nonprofit that fights for the economic security and prosperity of the American people by advocating for a strong, stable and balanced financial system.” He has worthy insights regarding the current state […]
WASHINGTON — A new proposed long-term liquidity requirement confers little benefit while adding compliance costs and contradicting existing regulations, according to banks and financial industry trade groups. In a joint letter to the regulators, several trade groups representing large banks argued that the Liquidity Coverage Ratio, a liquidity measure finalized in 2014 that requires banks […]
WASHINGTON — Three consumer groups are asking a D.C. federal court to deny a trade group’s request for an injunction that would bar the Department of Labor (DOL) from implementing its fiduciary standard rule next April, pending further legal proceedings. The friend of the court brief was filed by Better Markets, Inc., Consumer Federation of […]
Donald Trump has finally outlined what he calls his economic plan for the country. In addition to the incorrect facts, shoddy statistics, baseless arguments, exaggerations and misrepresentations (as detailed by so many in the media), Trump also failed to mention one of the biggest catastrophes to hit the country in almost 100 years: the 2008 […]
Big Wall Street banks are asking the U.S. Federal Reserve to grant them an additional five-year grace period to comply with a financial reform regulation known as the Volcker rule, people familiar with the matter said. If the Fed agrees, the extension would give banks more time to exit fund investments that are difficult to […]
(Reuters) – It took the Department of Labor three tries to adopt new rules for brokers and financial advisers who sell retirement-related products. As Reuters reported when the new policy was adopted last April, the Labor Department’s previous attempts in 2010 and 2015 met with such an outcry from the insurance, brokerage and investment advisory industries that proposals were […]
Donald Trump has finally outlined what he calls his economic plan for the country. In addition to the incorrect facts, shoddy statistics, baseless arguments, exaggerations and misrepresentations (as detailed by so many in the media), Trump also failed to mention one of the biggest catastrophes to hit the country in almost 100 years: the 2008 […]
NOT BUYING BAYH FOR BANKING — The reaction from the left was swift and severe to the idea that if Indiana Democrat Evan Bayh returns to the Senate he could leapfrog Sherrod Brown and chair the Banking Committee if Democrats take back the chamber. Hill veterans also dismissed the idea. From one Senior Dem close to […]
“A fight is brewing in the Kansas and Texas courts over whether to allow advocates and opponents of the Department of Labor’s fiduciary rule to state their case. “Insurer Market Synergy urged a Kansas judge Friday to throw out the “barrage” of amicus briefs filed by supporters of DOL’s rule on the basis that the […]
“TRUMPENOMICS 101 — The economic plan Donald Trump rolled Monday out was a peculiar mix of supply side tax cuts (though trimmed down from his original proposal) and hard-core protectionism with a side order of regulatory relief. Perhaps the strangest things for a would-be populist: elimination of the estate tax, which hits only the very wealthy, […]
The TBTF wars continue. Better Markets’ Dennis Kelleher emails: “When will the TBTF trade groups realize that just because they say something — however stridently — doesn’t make it true? First, TCH citing itself in support of itself is too rich to merit comment. Second, the ABA needs to read the regulators’ findings of deficiency […]
“The UK’s four biggest banks would need to raise another £155bn in fresh capital to withstand a new financial crisis, despite the view of the Bank of England Governor that lenders have an adequate cushion to cope with further turmoil. Those are the results of research from three respected financial academics – and add to […]
“WARREN ON TRUMP: NUCLEAR WAR IS BAD FOR BUSINESS — In a new Bloomberg Businessweek interview out this a.m., Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) on the huge disparity in Wall Street donations in favor of Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump”: “I don’t see it as a swing back to Democrats so much as I see it as […]
“The Bank of England’s annual stress tests of the UK’s banks, designed to ensure Britain’s lenders will not be at the heart of another destructive financial crisis, have been branded “worse than useless”, by a new report. “Kevin Dowd, professor of finance and economics at Durham University, argues in a paper published today by the […]
“It wasn’t supposed to be this way. The regulatory onslaught that followed the 2008 crisis had one big target: ending “Too Big to Fail,” the popular shorthand for large banks’ (and insurers’) ability to hold governments to ransom by threatening to bring down entire economies with them. Among the measures aimed at achieving that goal […]
“The basic business model of high street banking is to profit from the “margin” between the interest rate at which banks lend to borrowers and the interest rate they pay out to depositors. The Bank of England sets the costof borrowing throughout the economy with its base rate, dragging the private banks in its wake. When […]
Republicans last week adopted their national party platform during the Republican National Convention in Cleveland. The New York Times called it “the most extreme Republican platform in memory.” ThinkAdvisor examines some of the economic principles discussed in the platform that could affect financial advisors – and what industry experts are saying about them. *** In […]
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