178 posts on "Banks"
June 25, 2018
How Is Technology Changing the Mortgage Market?
The adoption of new technologies is transforming the mortgage industry. For instance, borrowers can now obtain a mortgage entirely online, and lenders use increasingly sophisticated methods to verify borrower income and assets. In a recent staff report, we present evidence suggesting that technology is reducing frictions in mortgage lending, such as reducing the time it takes to originate a mortgage, and increasing the elasticity of mortgage supply. These benefits do not seem to come at the cost of less careful screening of borrowers.
June 19, 2018
At the New York Fed: Conference on the Effects of Post‑Crisis Banking Reforms
Crump and Santos preview a New York Fed conference debating the efficacy of post-crisis banking reforms, looking at whether they have achieved their intended goals and considering the unintended consequences.
June 1, 2018
Hey, Economist! Outgoing New York Fed President Bill Dudley on FOMC Preparation and Thinking Like an Economist
Bill Dudley will soon turn over the keys to the vault—so to speak. But before his tenure in office ends after nine years as president of the New York Fed, Liberty Street Economics caught up with him to capture his parting reflections on economic research, FOMC preparation, and leadership. Publications editor Trevor Delaney recently caught up with Dudley.
May 7, 2018
Have the Biggest U.S. Banks Become Less Complex?
The global financial crisis, and the ensuing Dodd-Frank Act, identified size and complexity as determinants of banks’ systemic importance, increasing the potential risks to financial stability. While it’s known that big banks haven’t shrunk, the question that remains is: have they simplified? In this post, we show that while the largest U.S. bank holding companies (BHCs) have somewhat simplified their organizational structures, they remain very complex. The industries spanned by entities within the BHCs have shifted more than they have declined, and the countries in which some large BHCs have entities still include numerous “secrecy” or tax-haven locations.
Posted at 7:00 am in Banks, Financial Institutions, Financial Intermediation, Regulation | Permalink | Comments (1)
March 5, 2018
Did the Dodd‑Frank Act End ‘Too Big to Fail’?
One goal of the Dodd-Frank Act of 2010 was to end “too big to fail.” Toward that goal, the Act required systemically important financial institutions to submit detailed plans for an orderly resolution (“living wills”) and authorized the FDIC to create an alternative resolution procedure. In response, the FDIC has developed a “single point of entry” (SPOE) strategy, under which healthy parent companies bear the losses of their failing subsidiaries. Since SPOE makes the parent company responsible for subsidiaries’ losses, we would expect parents to become riskier, relative to their subsidiaries, compared to before the announcement of the SPOE strategy in December 2013. Do bond raters and investors share this view?
February 12, 2018
Does More “Skin in the Game” Mitigate Bank Risk‑Taking?
It is widely said that a lack of “skin in the game” would distort lenders’ incentives and cause a moral hazard problem, that is, excessive risk-taking. If so, does more skin in the game—in the form of extended liability—reduce bankers’ risk-taking? In order to examine this question, we investigate historical data prior to the Great Depression, when bank owners’ liability for losses in the event of bank failure differed by state and primary regulator. This post describes our preliminary findings.
Posted at 7:00 am in Banks, Credit, Economic History, Financial Institutions, Regulation, Systemic Risk | Permalink | Comments (3)
February 9, 2018
Hey, Economist! What Do Cryptocurrencies Have to Do with Trust?
Bitcoin and other “cryptocurrencies” have been much in the news lately, in part because of their wild gyrations in value. Michael Lee and Antoine Martin, economists in the New York Fed’s Money and Payment Studies function, have been following cryptocurrencies and agreed to answer some questions about digital money.
Posted at 7:00 am in Banks, Central Bank, Cryptocurrencies, Financial Markets, Hey, Economist!, Monetary Policy | Permalink
February 2, 2018
New Report Assesses Structural Changes in Global Banking
The Committee on the Global Financial System, made up of senior officials from central banks around the world and chaired by New York Fed President William Dudley, recently released a report on “Structural Changes in Banking after the Crisis.” The report includes findings from a wide-ranging study documenting the significant structural adjustments in banking systems around the world in response to regulatory, technological, and market changes after the crisis, while also assessing their implications for financial stability, credit provision, and capital markets activity. It includes a new banking database spanning over twenty-one countries from 2000 to 2016 that could serve as a valuable reference for further analysis. Overall, the study concludes that the changed regulatory and market environment since the crisis has led banks to alter their business models and balance sheets in ways that make them more resilient but also less profitable, while continuing their role as intermediaries providing financial services to the real economy.
Posted at 7:00 am in Banks, Credit, Financial Institutions, Financial Intermediation, Regulation, Systemic Risk | Permalink | Comments (1)
October 18, 2017
What Explains Shareholder Payouts by Large Banks?
On June 28, the Federal Reserve released the latest results of the Comprehensive Capital Analysis and Review (CCAR), the supervisory program that assesses the capital adequacy and capital planning processes of large, complex banking companies.
September 6, 2017
What Drives International Bank Credit?
A major question facing policymakers is how to deal with slumps in bank credit.
Posted at 7:00 am in Bank Capital, Banks, Credit, Crisis, Financial Markets, International Economics | Permalink
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