Operation Choke Point focused on crypto markets?

[pmbug]

There are a lot of recent developments on this story. I have not been updating this thread with them. Most of the developments are encapsulated in this discussion with three of the main protagonists in the developing story:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQA-6w8nsNs

 

[pmbug]

Bold emphasis is mine:

On January 20, 2025, Travis Hill became Acting Chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC). Acting Chairman Hill issued the following statement:

“It is my honor and privilege to serve as Acting Chairman of the FDIC. While the FDIC faces a broad range of issues, and as always will fulfill our mandate to promote a safe, sound, and resilient banking system, below is a list of matters I expect the FDIC to focus on in the coming weeks and months.”

• Conduct a wholesale review of regulations, guidance, and manuals to ensure our rules and approach promote a vibrant, growing economy.
• Adopt a more open-minded approach to innovation and technology adoption, including (1) a more transparent approach to fintech partnerships and to digital assets and tokenization, and (2) engagement to address growing technology costs for community banks.
• Improve the bank merger approval process and replace the 2024 Statement of Policy to ensure that merger transactions that satisfy the Bank Merger Act are approved in a timely way.
• Withdraw problematic proposals from the past three years, such as proposals on brokered deposits and corporate governance.
• Improve the supervisory process to focus more on core financial risks and less on process, and reevaluate the supervisory appeals process.
• Enhance our readiness and preparedness for resolving large financial institutions, incorporating lessons from the far-too-costly failures of 2023, including the need to be much more proactive and nimble and to improve the bidding process.
• Pursue adjustments to our capital and liquidity rules to appropriately balance driving economic growth with ensuring safety and soundness and resilience to shocks.
• Encourage more de novo activity so there is a healthy pipeline of new entrants in the banking sector.
• Work to ensure law-abiding customers have, and do not lose, access to bank accounts and banking services.
• Modernize implementation of the Bank Secrecy Act.
• Study deposit behavior to develop a more sophisticated understanding of the relative stability of different types of deposits and depositors.
• Reevaluate our disclosure practices, and expand transparency in areas that do not impact safety and soundness or financial stability.
• Ensure the FDIC remains within our statutory mandates, and stops coloring outside the lines.
• Pursue internal efficiencies to ensure we are serving as responsible stewards of the Deposit Insurance Fund.
• Reestablish a strong workforce culture, where misconduct is not tolerated and those who engage in misconduct are held accountable.

https://fdic.gov/news/press-releases/2025/statement-acting-chairman-travis-hill

Operation Chokepoint 2.0 is over.

 

[pmbug]

The Financial Integrity and Regulation Management (FIRM) Act​

Overview:
Financial regulators have weaponized their power to target disfavored political groups and individuals
in America, hiding behind opaque veils of confidentiality and insincere proclamations of
independence. We must rein in these rogue regulators.

Chairman Tim Scott’s Financial Integrity and Regulation Management (FIRM) Act curtails the
political weaponization of the Federal banking agencies by eliminating the ability for regulators to use
“reputational risk” as a component of the supervision of federally regulated financial institutions.

The FIRM Act will:

• Eliminate all references to reputational risk as a measure to determine the safety and
  soundness of regulated depository institutions.
• Eliminate the Federal banking agencies’ ability to promulgate new rules or guidance that use
  reputational risk to supervise or regulate depository institutions.
• Require the Federal banking agencies to report to Congress on their elimination of reputational
  risk as a component of the supervision of depository institutions.

This bill is narrowly tailored so that removal of this subjective factor does not affect quantitative
supervisory measures (e.g. concentration risk, liquidity risk, etc.).

Background on Reputational Risk:

• The term “reputational risk” is commonly used by Federal banking agencies to refer to the
  potential that negative publicity or negative public opinion regarding an institution’s business
  practices, whether true or not, will cause a decline in confidence in the institution, decline in
  the customer base, costly litigation, or revenue reductions.
• Through informal guidance, the Federal banking agencies—Federal Reserve, OCC, FDIC,
  NCUA—have incorporated reputational risk as a component to determine a federally regulated
  depository institution’s supervisory rating.
• The use of reputational risk to determine a depository institution’s supervisory rating is not
  required by statute and it is an improper use of supervisory authority. Federal banking
  agencies use reputational risk to prevent federally regulated depository institutions from
  providing financial services to industries that the agencies disfavor.

https://www.banking.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/firm_act_one_pager.pdf