Changes that the bill would make in the regulatory process are genuinely significant. These are largely in Title III of (see page 104).  

Under the terms of the bill, the various financial regulators (including the banking regulators, the CFTC and the SEC) would be prohibited from issuing a "regulation" (which term would be broadly defined) unless the regulator first issued a statement (i) stating the need for the regulation, (ii) explaining why the private market could not…

The GAO report serves as a good introduction to each of the four FinTech subsectors, and to some of the more significant legal and compliance issues that each business raises.

Given that many of the CFPB's actions do not reflect current executive or legislative policy, the CFPB's report on the direction of its intended activities brings home a difficult Constitutional issue: to what branch of the government does the CFPB belong? It is not judicial. It is not funded directly by Congress. And it does not report to the President. It is clearly more "independent" than the other independent agencies, such as the SEC or the CFTC (whose Chairpersons are named by the…

The notion that banks would improve their return on equity if they had a higher percentage of equity seems counterintuitive. The "proof" that Vice Chair Hoenig offers for this assertion is that other industries that have higher ROEs are less highly leveraged. The argument that a bank would make the same profits as a consumer/discretionary company if only it had the same debt/equity ratio does not seem compelling. There are reasons other than high leverage why banks' ROE might be low:…