First 100 Days: Regulatory Update
March 18, 2025
The Trump administration and Capitol Hill continue to round out senior leadership roles in the financial regulatory apparatus.
Yesterday, President Donald Trump nominated Federal Reserve Governor Michelle Bowman to be the Fed’s next vice chair for supervision.
- While former Fed Vice-Chair of Supervision Michael Barr stepped down from the Vice-Chair position on February 28, he remains on the Board.
- The Dodd-Frank mandated Vice-Chair of Supervision position must be held by a Fed governor. Given that the Board will not have a vacancy until early 2026, Trump’s choice was either to wait or nominate a current governor.
- One of only three Republicans on the Board, including Chair Jerome Powell, Bowman was considered the likely candidate given her significant experience as a community banker and focus on lighter-touch bank regulation.
In a recent series of speeches, Bowman outlined the following regulatory agenda:
- Tailored regulation that reflects a bank's size, risk profile, and business model;
- Supervisory transparency to ensure banks understand and can effectively meet regulatory requirements;
- Regulatory frameworks that support technological advancements and new financial products; and
- Emphasis on core financial risks such as liquidity and capital adequacy, over non-financial risks, to maintain the stability and resilience of the banking system.
Bowman has been a vocal critic of the proposed bank capital requirements that Barr had led. We expect the bank regulators to develop a new proposal that will be capital-neutral.
What's next: CREFC plans to meet with regulators to ensure our previously stated concerns with the proposal are considered in the re-write.
Status of other financial regulators:
- As covered in this Policy and Capital Markets Briefing (PCM) as well as in a CREFC Alert last week, Bill Pulte was confirmed as director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency in a bipartisan 56-43 vote.
- The nominee to lead the Consumer Financial Protection Board, Jonathan McKernan, who was reported out of the Senate Banking Committee a few weeks ago, awaits Senate confirmation.
- Jonathan Gould, nominated to lead the Office of Comptroller of the Currency, has not yet appeared before the Senate Banking Committee.
Please see here for CREFC’s Regulatory Leadership Tracker.
As covered in a previous CREFC PCM, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said he would leverage his position as chair of the Financial Stability Oversight Committee (FSOC) to better coordinate regulatory policy.
- On March 20, Bessent will preside over an FSOC executive session. The preliminary agenda for the meeting includes updates on:
- Recent Treasury market developments,
- Cybersecurity developments, and
- Homeowner insurance and natural disasters.
CREFC will share key developments to the extent FSOC provides details on the session.
Please contact
Sairah Burki (
sburki@crefc.org) with questions.