At the New York Fed: Research Conference on FinTech

Alan Basmajian, Brad Groarke, Vanessa Kargenian, Kimberley Liao, Erika Ota-Liedtke, Jesse Maniff, and Asani Sarkar



Financial technology (“FinTech”) refers to the evolving intersection of financial services and technology. In March, the New York Fed hosted "The First New York Fed Research Conference on FinTech” to understand the implications of FinTech developments on issues that are relevant to the Fed’s mandates such as lending, payments, and regulation. In this post, we summarize the principal themes and findings of the conference.

How Do Large Banks Manage Their Cash?

Jeffrey Levine and Asani Sarkar

Second of two posts

As the aggregate supply of reserves shrinks and large banks implement liquidity regulations, they may follow a variety of liquidity management strategies depending on their business models and the interest rate differences between alternative liquid instruments. For example, the banks may continue to hold large amounts of excess reserves or shift to Treasury or agency securities or shrink their balance sheets. In this post, we provide new evidence on how large banks have managed their cash, which is the largest component of reserves, on a daily basis since the implementation of liquidity regulations.

Large Bank Cash Balances and Liquidity Regulations

Jeffrey Levine and Asani Sarkar

Update (9 a.m.): An earlier version of this post transposed line labels in the first figure. The error has been corrected.

First of two posts

The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) has recently communicated its aim to continue implementing monetary policy in a regime that maintains an ample supply of reserves, though with a significantly lower level of reserves than has prevailed in recent years. The liquidity needs of the largest U.S. commercial banks play an important role in understanding the banking system’s appetite for actual reserve holdings, which we refer to as bank reserve demand. In this post, we discuss the recent evolution of large bank cash balances and the effect of liquidity regulations on these balances. In part two of this series, we provide new evidence on how the largest banks manage their liquidity needs on a daily basis.

Credit Market Choice

Nina Boyarchenko, Anna M. Costello, and Or Shachar



Credit default swaps (CDS) are frequently credited with being the cause of AIG’s collapse during the financial crisis. A Reuters article from September 2008, for example, notes “[w]hen you hear that the collapse of AIG […] might lead to a systemic collapse of the global financial system, the feared culprit is, largely, that once-obscure […] instrument known as a credit default swap.” Yet, despite the prominent role that CDS played during the financial crisis, little is known about how individual financial institutions utilize CDS contracts on individual companies. In a recent New York Fed staff report, we assess the choice banks face when trading the idiosyncratic credit risk of a firm, and argue that banks’ participation decisions have been affected in the post-regulation period, either by direct changes in market structure or by changes in the relative cost of pursuing different strategies.

Liquidity Effects of Post-Crisis Regulatory Reform

Nina Boyarchenko and Or Shachar



The post-crisis regulatory reform efforts to improve capital and liquidity positions of regulated institutions provide incentives for banks to change not only the structure of their own balance sheets but also how they interact with their customers and other market participants more generally. A 2015 PwC study on global financial market liquidity, for example, noted that “[a]s banks respond to the new regulatory environment, they have sought to make more efficient use of capital and liquidity resources, by reducing the markets they serve and streamlining their operations.” In this blog post, we provide an overview of three recent New York Fed staff reports that study the impact that post-crisis regulation has had on the willingness and ability of regulated firms to participate in U.S. over-the-counter (OTC) markets.

Did Banks Subject to LCR Reduce Liquidity Creation?

Daniel Roberts, Asani Sarkar, and Or Shachar



Banks traditionally provide loans that are funded mostly by deposits and thereby create liquidity, which benefits the economy. However, since the loans are typically long-term and illiquid, whereas the deposits are short-term and liquid, this creation of liquidity entails risk for the bank because of the possibility that depositors may “run” (that is, withdraw their deposits on short notice). To mitigate this risk, regulators implemented the liquidity coverage ratio (LCR) following the financial crisis of 2007-08, mandating banks to hold a buffer of liquid assets. A side effect of the regulation, however, is a reduction in liquidity creation by banks subject to LCR, as we find in our recent paper.

What Happens When Regulatory Capital Is Marked to Market?

Andreas Fuster and James Vickery



Minimum equity capital requirements are a key part of bank regulation. But there is little agreement about the right way to measure regulatory capital. One of the key debates is the extent to which capital ratios should be based on current market values rather than historical “accrual” values of assets and liabilities. In a new research paper, we investigate the effects of a recent regulatory change that ties regulatory capital directly to the market value of the securities portfolio for some banks.

Analyzing the Effects of CFPB Oversight

Andreas Fuster, Matthew Plosser, and James Vickery



The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), created in 2011, is a key element of post-crisis U.S. financial regulation, as well as the subject of intense debate. While some have praised the agency, citing the benefits of consumer financial protection, others argue that its activities involve high compliance costs, increase uncertainty and legal risk, and ultimately reduce the availability of financial services for consumers. We present new evidence on whether the CFPB’s supervisory and enforcement activities have significantly affected the supply of mortgage credit, or had other effects on bank risk-taking and profitability.

Resolving “Too Big to Fail”

Nicola Cetorelli and James Traina



Many market participants believe that large financial institutions enjoy an implicit guarantee that the government will step in to rescue them from potential failure. These “Too Big to Fail” (TBTF) issues became particularly salient during the 2008 crisis. From the government’s perspective, rescuing these financial institutions can be important to avoid harm to the financial system. The bailouts also artificially lower the risk borne by investors and the financing costs of big banks. The Dodd-Frank Act attempts to remove the incentive for governments to bail out banks in the first place by mandating that each large bank file a “living will” that details its strategy for a rapid and orderly resolution in the event of material distress or failure without disrupting the broader economy. In our recent New York Fed staff report, we look at whether living wills are effective at reducing the cost of implicit TBTF bailout subsidies.

The Premium for Money-Like Assets

Marco Cipriani and Gabriele La Spada



Several academic papers have documented investors’ willingness to pay a premium to hold money-like assets and focused on its implications for financial stability. In a New York Fed staff report, we estimate such premium using a quasi-natural experiment, the recent reform of the money market fund (MMF) industry by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).