by Matthew Russell Lee, Patreon Book Substack
SDNY COURTHOUSE, March 29 – For two days on Capitol Hill three regulators answered partisan questions about two, or two and a half, bank seizures and re-sales.
It was not pretty.
Federal Reserve Vice Chair for Supervision Michael Barr, FDIC Chair Martin Gruenberg and Treasury Under Secretary for Domestic Finance Nellie Liang deferred many of their answers until reports due on May 1.
Barr insisted, We want to be transparent. But the Federal Reserve Board has delayed in responding to FOIA requests, for example Inner City Press' FOIA request about its actions on banks and crypto firms including FTX.
Guenberg told the House, in response to questions, that Signature Bank's Signet will be returning digital assets by April 5 - but said that the Signet business is still for sale.
There were no questions about public pre-disclosure and comment on these acquisitions. Community Benefits Agreements in California and Massachusetts were raised, with Gruenberg calling these private agreements but noting that the banks are subject to CRA evaluation.
But these same regulators give 98% of banks Satisfactory or Outstanding CRA ratings.
Hence the call by Fair Finance Watch and then others that for example Key Bank not be allowed to make any midnight acquisitions like New York Community Bank / Flagstar or First Citizens - see here, and more blow by blow, member by member reporting on Substack here
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