The OCC's limited-purpose fintech charter Â-- which will come with new regulatory and compliance responsibilities Â-- will separate the healthiest fintech companies from the unhealthy ones, leading fintech one step closer to disrupting the incumbents.
The effort to end regulatory absolutism will most likely succeed if it is framed as a pro-economy reform, with members of both political parties driving the train.
The persistent opposition to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Â-- which has been fierce since day one Â-- has been puzzling, and has been cloaked in misleading arguments about the structure of the agency.
The dominance of the sector by the Big Four accounting firms poses its own systemic-risk concerns and prompts questions about how other mega-companies are audited.
Any method for unwinding too-big-to-fail institutions that tries to avoid bailouts is a fool's errand. A more effective path may be reducing the size of TBTF banks or regulating them as utilities.
The current single-director leadership structure of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is not a recipe for transparency and accountability. Creating a multimember commission to oversee the agency is the answer.
Businesses, governments, universities and the Federal Reserve all struggle to adequately reflect the populations they serve. It's time to take ownership of diversity outcomes.
The industry doesn't want to attack the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau directly, but its push to reform the agency's leadership structure is a backdoor strike at the CFPB's very existence.
With the change in administration and more friendly economic conditions, policymakers should consider greater balance between principles- and rules-based approaches.