- Pyongyang to 'permanently' shut border with South Korea
- Trumpet star Marsalis says jazz creates 'balance' in divided world
- No children left on Greece's famed but emptying island
- Nepali becomes youngest to climb world's 8,000m peaks
- Climate change made deadly Hurricane Helene more intense: study
- A US climate scientist sees hurricane Helene's devastation firsthand
- Padres edge Dodgers, Mets on the brink
- Can carbon credits help close coal plants?
- With EU funding, Tunisian farmer revives parched village
- Sega ninja game 'Shinobi' gets movie treatment
- Boeing suspends negotiations with striking workers
- 7-Eleven owner's shares spike on report of new buyout offer
- Your 'local everything': what 7-Eleven buyout battle means for Japan
- Three million UK children living below poverty line: study
- China's Jia brings film spanning love, change over decades to Busan
- Paying out disaster relief before climate catastrophe strikes
- Chinese shares drop on stimulus upset, Asia tracks Wall St higher
- SE Asian summit seeks progress on Myanmar civil war
- How climate funds helped Peru's women beekeepers stay afloat
- Nobel Peace Prize to be awarded as wars rage
- Pacific island nations swamped by global drug trade
- AI-aided research, new materials eyed for Nobel Chemistry Prize
- Mozambique elects new president in tense vote
- The US economy is solid: Why are voters gloomy?
- Balkan summit to rally support for struggling Ukraine
- New stadium gives Real Madrid a headache
- Alonso, Manaea shine as 'Miracle Mets' blitz Phillies
- Harris, Trump trade blows in US election media blitz
- Harry's Bar in Paris drinks to US straw-poll centenary
- Osama bin Laden's son Omar banned from returning to France
- Afghan man arrested for plotting US election day attack
- Brazil lifts ban on Musk's X, ending standoff over disinformation
- Harris holds slight edge nationally over Trump: poll
- Chelsea edge Real Madrid in Women's Champions League, Lyon win
- Japan PM to dissolve parliament for 'honeymoon' snap election
- 'Diego Lives': Immersive Maradona exhibit hits Barcelona
- Brazil Supreme Court lifts ban on Musk's X
- Scientists sound AI alarm after winning physics Nobel
- Six-year-old girl among missing after Brazil landslide
- Nobel-winning physicist 'unnerved' by AI technology he helped create
- Mexico president rules out new 'war on drugs'
- Israeli defense minister postpones trip to Washington: Pentagon
- Europe skipper Donald in talks with Garcia over Ryder return
- Kenya MPs vote to impeach deputy president in historic move
- Former US coach Berhalter named Chicago Fire head coach
- New York Jets fire head coach Saleh: team
- Australia crush New Zealand in Women's T20 World Cup
- US states accuse TikTok of harming young users
- 'Evacuate now, now, now': Florida braces for next hurricane
- US Supreme Court skeptical of challenge to 'ghost guns' regulation
Biden urges US regulators to restore tougher rules on midsize banks
US President Joe Biden called on banking regulators Thursday to reinstate tougher rules on midsized banks, saying that doing so would prevent future failures like that of Silicon Valley Bank.
While his predecessor Donald Trump eased rules for banks with between $100 billion and $250 billion in assets, Biden urged regulators to instead consider a set of reforms to "reduce the risk of future banking crises," according to a White House fact sheet.
A White House official called the measures "common-sense steps that can be taken under existing authority" and without congressional approval, in a briefing with journalists.
The announcement comes as regulators, lawmakers and other stakeholders continue to investigate the speedy demise of SVB and two other midsized US banks earlier in March. Those failures spurred fears of widespread financial contagion that have eased somewhat in recent days.
While the largest US banks such as Citigroup and JPMorgan Chase are subjected to the strictest capital and liquidity requirements, midsized banks saw an easing of standards under Trump.
The original Dodd-Frank law passed in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis imposed stricter standards on banks with at least $50 billion in assets.
But a 2018 reform signed into law by Trump removed tougher standards on banks with assets of $50 billion to $100 billion.
For banks with assets between $100 billion and $250 billion, the tougher rules would not automatically be adopted unless regulators imposed them on a case-by-case basis.
Under Thursday's announcement, Biden called for annual stress tests for banks of this size; so-called "living wills" laying out how assets would be wound down in case of failure; and strong capital requirements.
The White House fact sheet did not specifically mention the Federal Reserve or the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) but was addressed at "federal banking agencies, in consultation with the Treasury Department."
- Deregulation 'may have gone too far' -
In a separate speech, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen suggested recent banking sector turmoil is a reminder that work on reform remains unfinished, and that there is a need to "consider whether deregulation may have gone too far."
While the failures of SVB and later Signature Bank did not trigger a financial meltdown, the "substantial interventions" required suggests more work needs to be done, Yellen said.
SVB bank was taken over by the FDIC on March 10 following a bank run of depositors after the California lender disclosed losses on assets sold quickly to raise liquidity.
Some of the lender's problems were due to its heavy exposure to a single sector -- technology -- and weak risk management practices that left it exposed to unfavorable interest rate changes.
At congressional hearings this week, the Fed vice chair for supervision Michael Barr called SVB's failure a "textbook case of mismanagement," while also acknowledging deficiencies in oversight.
"I think that any time you have a bank failure like this, bank management clearly failed, supervisors failed and our regulatory system failed," Barr said Wednesday.
Barr also said that Fed examiners called out risk management deficiencies at SVB during the course of banking examination, but that the issues were not addressed in time.
Regulators from the Fed, which oversees the stress tests, and FDIC have told congressional panels they were reviewing oversight of SVB and would address any regulatory failings.
Their reports will be released by May 1.
American Bankers Association President Rob Nichols warned Thursday that with reviews by the Fed and other agencies ongoing, "it is premature to call for rule changes by independent regulatory agencies" before determining the extent to which supervisors failed to fully utilize their tools.
A.Rodriguezv--AMWN