Jay Powell outsources monetary policy

From: POLITICO's Morning Money - Thursday Mar 23,2023 12:02 pm
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POLITICO Morning Money

By Victoria Guida and Zachary Warmbrodt

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For Federal Reserve watchers, there’s an acronym that’s about to catch on in popularity: SLOOS.

The Senior Loan Officer Opinion Survey, released by the Fed every quarter, gives high-level indications about the extent to which banks are pulling back on providing loans. That is now a central question in how high the Fed ultimately raises interest rates, Chair Jay Powell confirmed on Wednesday. The next survey release should come in April.

A lot of Fed officials expect the recent string of bank failures to restrict credit in a way that acts as essentially another rate hike. “What I heard was a significant number of people saying that they anticipated there would be some tightening of credit conditions,” Powell told reporters after the Fed raised rates for the ninth-straight time. “If that turned out not to be the case, in principle, you’d need more rate hikes.”

Translation: How much more will the Fed increase rates? That depends on what banks do.

Speaking of banks, Powell didn’t have great news for them. Both regional lenders and megabanks were already worried about the extent to which Vice Chair Michael Barr might push to toughen regulations before any of this happened. Now, it seems Barr has been given plenty of leash in his post-SVB review of Fed regulation and supervision (expected by May 1), and Powell won’t be standing in the way.

“It’s clear we do need to strengthen supervision and regulation,” the Fed chief said. “And I assume that ... there will be recommendations coming out of the report. And I plan on supporting them and supporting their implementation.”

Of course, this is only comforting to the outside voices who have been calling for an external review, worried that the Fed will only go so far in criticizing itself. But the political dynamics here have shifted fast enough to give you whiplash.

Your MM co-host has a list of takeaways here from Powell’s presser. But it’s also worth touching on one other point he made: no change to the shrinking of the central bank’s massive balance sheet, yet. That’s notable because, as former top Fed staffer Bill Nelson wrote on Tuesday, “with bankers and bank examiners reassessing upward the amount of cash needed to be prepared for outflows, structural demand for reserve balances is rising sharply.” More demand for bank reserves means a sooner end to so-called quantitative tightening.

Watch this space. The big outstanding question is whether banks will finally feel the pressure to start raising the amount of interest they pay on deposits. There is, after all, a huge $2 trillion pot of reserves that they could have access to if they do: the funds that money market funds are instead parking at the Fed’s overnight reverse repo facility.

Nelson, now chief economist at the Bank Policy Institute. said the Fed could make it easier to keep shrinking its bond holdings, if it lowered the rate it pays to money market funds to lend cash to the central bank.

“It could even slow the pace of QT, a move that might make extra sense given the strains in Treasury markets,” he added. “Halting QT entirely would most likely send too strong a signal that the monetary policy tightening cycle is ending.”

It’s “OK Day” (seriously) — But it’s going to be great. Thanks for keeping MM in the loop this week. As always, you can send tips to zwarmbrodt@politico.com.

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Driving the Day

The House will vote to override President Joe Biden’s ESG rollback veto … U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai testifies at Senate Finance at 10 a.m. … House Financial Services has a hearing on China’s role in fentanyl trafficking at 10 a.m. … Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen testifies with OMB Director Shalanda Young and White House CEA Chair Cecilia Rouse at House Appropriations at 3 p.m. …

First in MM: McHenry and Hill press Yellen and Gruenberg for bank rescue details — House Financial Services Chair Patrick McHenry and Vice Chair French Hill have asked Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and FDIC Chair Martin Gruenberg for a detailed accounting of their actions to stabilize the banking system over the weekend of March 10-12, as well as whether there were any warning signs about Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank.

In letters sent Wednesday, the Republicans asked for a specific timeline of events but also justifications for key decisions.

Among them: The committee wants to know how Gruenberg evaluated bidders for Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank before officials opted to have the government guarantee their deposits. The lawmakers ask if he was involved in assessing SVB bids from PNC and RBC prior to March 10 and what his criteria was for evaluating them.

McHenry said at the American Bankers Association conference Wednesday that he wants to know whether a private sector solution was a viable option for SVB and Signature “or did the administration allow its ideological lens to color its judgment.”

Coinbase vs. SEC: It’s on — One of the most anticipated regulatory battles in crypto appears to be underway, our Declan Harty reports.

Coinbase, the largest U.S.-based digital currency exchange, revealed Wednesday that the SEC warned the company of pending charges following an investigation of its trading platform, crypto staking service and wallet product.

A Coinbase crackdown has long been a when-not-if question in light of SEC Chair Gary Gensler’s position that many crypto products are unregulated securities.

Coinbase and the broader industry have said for years that the assertion is wrong, and so for them the SEC case is a do-or-die moment with huge implications.

“[W]e are right on the law, confident in the facts, and welcome the opportunity for Coinbase (and by extension the broader crypto community) to get before a court,” Coinbase co-founder and CEO Brian Armstrong said on Twitter.

Yellen knocks down unilateral deposit guarantee — The Treasury secretary is trying to put to bed speculation that the Biden administration and regulators may go around Congress to instate a nationwide guarantee for uninsured deposits.

“It’s not something that we’re considering,” Yellen told a Senate committee.

The comment is a blow to midsize banks that pleaded for a two-year backstop to stem further runs.

But, as we’ve reported, other banking groups had steered clear of such an ask and may be relieved that Yellen signaled the idea will stay on the shelf.

Deposit politics — Top lawmakers continue to refine their positions as revamping federal deposit insurance takes hold as a top legislative target post-SVB.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, one of the first policymakers who called for enhancing deposit insurance after the SVB collapse, said guaranteeing all deposits would create “real problems.”

She said billion-dollar depositors are like investors, and when a bank blows up “they should be treated like investors.”

Senate Banking Chair Sherrod Brown cast doubt on a temporary, universal deposit backstop, saying on the sidelines of the ABA conference that “things like that end up being permanent too often.”

But he said longer-term deposit changes were a potential target for bipartisan collaboration, including raising the insurance cap for businesses to “deal with the issue of payroll.”

McHenry made a dig at lawmakers — including those in his own party — who have been eager to propose a bigger deposit safety net.

He said at the ABA conference that “some policymakers on both sides of the aisle are already jumping to the conclusion with incomplete information.”

 

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Policy and Politics

Yes, Tim Scott appears to be running — POLITICO reports that preparations for a presidential run by the Senate Banking Committee’s top Republican “are well underway,” setting him up to be the next candidate to formally launch a White House bid.

 

STEP INSIDE THE WEST WING: What's really happening in West Wing offices? Find out who's up, who's down, and who really has the president’s ear in our West Wing Playbook newsletter, the insider's guide to the Biden White House and Cabinet. For buzzy nuggets and details that you won't find anywhere else, subscribe today.

 
 
Regulatory Corner

House Republicans warn CFPB on auto lending — Four House Financial Services Republicans demanded CFPB Director Rohit Chopra turn over details on how the agency is handling oversight of auto lenders, after the bureau and the New York attorney general sued Credit Acceptance Corporation for deceptive practices.

Reps. Mike Lawler, Andrew Garbarino, Andy Barr and Bill Huizenga said the CFPB “has attacked the auto finance market” and pushed the bounds of its authority.

Wall Street watchdog demands Fed transparency in SVB review — Americans for Financial Reform advocacy and legislative director Renita Marcellin said the Fed will have to embrace “extraordinary steps” like releasing documentation of deliberations around the supervision and regulation of SVB, rather than simply presenting the public with conclusions about what went wrong.

 

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Crypto

Lindsay Lohan caught in SEC crypto crackdown — Declan reports that the SEC charged crypto entrepreneur Justin Sun with offering unregistered securities and running a celebrity token-touting ring that involved Lohan and Soulja Boy.

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