Senate Banking Committee

Members of both parties raised concerns that the requirements for participating in the Municipal Liquidity Facility and Main Street Lending Program are too restrictive to benefit smaller localities and certain midsize firms.

If Democrats retake both the White House and Senate in the 2020 election, analysts see threats to the industry from the appointment of new regulators and possible reversal of Trump-era deregulation. But legislation imposing new rules on financial institutions would face long odds.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren is calling on the Federal Reserve to hold corporate executives personally liable if they take bailout money intended to bolster credit markets and fail to meet all the certification requirements.

At a Senate hearing with all the bank regulators, Joseph Otting got an earful over his agency’s decision to move forward with Community Reinvestment Act reform during the pandemic. Lawmakers also urged the Fed to speed up the rollout of coronavirus relief programs.

In separate letters to Congress, the Fed asked for legislative action to ease Tier 1 capital minimums while the FDIC said it may use its own authority to address the market strain on banks.