Markets Struggle to Decide Where Banking Rules Go From Here

No clear path on helping banks

U.S. banking regulators gave investors a lot to chew on yesterday. The Federal Reserve went ahead with a quarter-point increase in interest rates, signaling that, for now, it remained more worried about inflation than banking stability.

But while Jerome Powell, the central bank’s chair, and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said that they were focused on ways to improve regulation of the banking industry, Ms. Yellen appeared to backtrack on the prospect of extending insurance on deposits. That lack of clarity unnerved investors yesterday, sending shares in smaller banks tumbling, as they worried about what’s next.

The Fed acknowledged that it may finally stop raising rates — “may” being the operative word, Mr. Powell said. Though officials forecast one more rate increase this year, that’s not set in stone. In some ways, Mr. Powell added, the turmoil hitting lenders now is effectively substituting for additional rate increases.

How the government will act on banking regulation remains unclear. Both Mr. Powell and Ms. Yellen suggested that more oversight was needed, though the Fed chair acknowledged that the central bank’s supervisors had had “not been effective” at preventing problems at Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank. (The latest embarrassing revelation: The governor of the Bank of England told Britain’s Parliament yesterday that he had warned the San Francisco Fed about Silicon Valley Bank over the past two years.)

Among the suggestions the two made were updating stress test models for lenders and giving back additional authority to the Financial Stability Oversight Council.

But Ms. Yellen appeared to dent market confidence yesterday when she told senators that the Biden administration would not consider adopting universal deposit insurance without congressional approval. The comments — which appeared to walk back suggestions she made a day earlier to an American Banking Association gathering — revived fears that the government was dithering about how to restore depositors’ confidence in banks.

Ms. Yellen’s remarks reflect the stark political reality that expansive new regulations are unlikely, given Republican opposition. (“If you have a hammer, the world looks like a nail,” said Representative Patrick McHenry of North Carolina, the Republican chair of the House Financial Services Committee.)

But markets are worried that the lack of a clear path forward will endanger wobbling lenders like First Republic and Pacific Western, the latter of which said yesterday that it had borrowed billions after losing 20 percent of its deposits since the start of the year. Shares in both companies fell sharply yesterday.

HERE’S WHAT’S HAPPENING

Switzerland raises interest rates and defends wiping out some Credit Suisse bonds. The Swiss National Bank increased rates by a half-point today, despite the market turmoil that drove the fire sale of Credit Suisse to UBS. The country’s financial regulator also laid out its rationale for writing off $17 billion worth of Credit Suisse bonds, a move that may draw lawsuits from investors.

The wait for an indictment of Donald Trump continues. The Manhattan grand jury that will decide whether to charge the former president over a hush-money payout to a porn star didn’t meet yesterday. It may do so today, The Times reports — but if the jury does, it isn’t clear whether the panel will hear from more witnesses or proceed to vote on charges.

Toshiba reportedly plans to sell itself for $15 billion. The Japanese conglomerate has accepted a takeover bid led by the investment firm Japan Industrial Partners, according to Nikkei Asia. The decision will conclude a yearslong effort to sell Toshiba, as the company has sought to restructure itself.

The bidding for Manchester United heats up. Jim Ratcliffe, the billionaire British industrialist, reportedly plans to raise his offer for the English soccer club to more than £5 billion ($6.1 billion), according to The Financial Times. He’s competing against Sheikh Jassim bin Hamad al-Thani, a Qatari businessman, and others, in a process that could set a record price for a pro sports team — or fail to end in a sale.

TikTok goes to Congress

The C.E.O. of TikTok, Shou Chew, will face questions from U.S. lawmakers today over fears that the social media platform poses a national security risk. The Biden administration has threatened to ban the app, which now claims some 150 million American users, if ByteDance, its Chinese owner, refuses to sell it.

But TikTok says those fears are overblown — and the company has enlisted American allies to help make its case.

U.S. officials are worried about two main issues:

How the data of U.S. users is stored, with policymakers arguing that Chinese laws give Beijing the power to demand data from companies for intelligence-gathering operations.
The possibility of Bejing using the app to spread misinformation, a concern of U.S. intelligence.

Mr. Shou will say today that the company is “not an agent of China or any other country,” according to prepared testimony. He will add that ByteDance is owned by its founders, its employees — including Americans — and by global investors, including the asset management giant BlackRock and the investment firms General Atlantic and Sequoia. General Atlantic’s C.E.O., William Ford, sits on ByteDance’s board.

Mr. Shou will also point to a plan TikTok proposed in August, called Project Texas, that is meant to further insulate American user data from Chinese government meddling. Under the plan, U.S. user information would be stored in America on servers managed by the Silicon Valley giant Oracle.

A few American allies spoke out in TikTok’s defense yesterday. They included Representative Jamaal Bowman, Democrat of New York, who called for a more “nuanced” conversation. He spoke at a news conference alongside about 30 prominent TikTokers whom the company had brought to Capitol Hill.

Mr. Bowman conceded that there were security and data privacy concerns, but he argued that American social media companies like Facebook and Twitter weren’t immune to such issues either. “Why the hell are we whipping ourselves into a hysteria to scapegoat TikTok?” he told The Times.

That may not be enough to help TikTok. Gabriel Wildau, the head of China political risk at the advisory firm Teneo, told DealBook that the U.S.’s justifications mirror those Beijing uses to block American tech companies.

“In the current atmosphere of panic about China, a sober assessment of risk is impossible,” he said.

“There were a couple of tweets and then this thing went down much faster than has happened in history.”

— Jane Fraser, Citigroup’s C.E.O., on the role of mobile apps and quick money transfers in causing bank runs like the one that doomed Silicon Valley Bank.

Coinbase is in the cross hairs

The crypto exchange Coinbase disclosed yesterday that the S.E.C. was likely to sue it for potential violations of securities laws. News that the company received a Wells notice, an indication that enforcement actions are coming, sent its shares down 12 percent.

If that lawsuit comes, it would set off a battle between America’s biggest crypto business and a regulator intent on cracking down on what it views as an untamed industry rife with dangers.

The S.E.C. is concerned about several parts of Coinbase’s business, the exchange said. Among them is its staking business, in which investors users pledge certain crypto holdings to companies in exchange for hefty returns. (Those borrowed holdings in turn are used to validate crypto transactions.)

Staking was what drove the S.E.C. last month to charge Kraken, a smaller crypto exchange, with securities violations. That company agreed to a $30 million fine and to stop offering staking services to U.S. customers.

The Wells notice also indicated concern about Coinbase’s crypto wallet and, more broadly, some assets listed on its exchange.

Coinbase isn’t going down without a fight. The exchange’s chief legal officer, Paul Grewal, said that the company was prepared to defend itself in court if necessary. He also noted that the S.E.C. had reviewed Coinbase’s listings and staking processes two years ago as part of the exchange’s move to go public. (Of note: That process took place before Gary Gensler, the S.E.C.’s current chair, was sworn in.)

And Brian Armstrong, Coinbase’s co-founder and C.E.O., accused the S.E.C. of refusing to engage with crypto companies on setting up clear rules the industry could follow — and was instead turning to enforcement action. The coming fight will allow Coinbase to show “that the S.E.C. simply has not been fair, reasonable, or even demonstrated a seriousness of purpose when it comes to its engagement on digital assets,” Armstrong tweeted.

The stakes are high. Coinbase is among the biggest and most regulated companies in the crypto industry and its standard-bearer in the U.S. Armstrong has repeatedly accused regulators of making America inhospitable to crypto innovation.

But Mr. Gensler has made clear that he thinks many practices in crypto are sorely in need of regulating — a point underscored yesterday when the agency sued the prominent crypto entrepreneur Justin Sun and celebrities like the actress Lindsay Lohan over promotion of his digital tokens.