Fedspeak roundup: 

Fed Governor Lisa Cook will discuss her economic outlook at the University of Michigan on Monday.

Cook and Boston Fed President Susan Collins will take part in a moderated discussion at the Federal Reserve’s “Exploring Careers in Economics” event on Tuesday. 

Cleveland Fed President Loretta Mester will speak to New York University’s Money Marketeers on Tuesday.

St. Louis Fed President James Bullard will discuss the U.S. economy and monetary policy at the Arkansas State Bank Department’s Day with the Commissioner event on Thursday.

Worth watching:

David Malpass, outgoing president of the World Bank Group, will give a keynote address at the Atlantic Council on Tuesday in which he will describe how the bank can further inclusive growth. 

Adrienne Harris, superintendent of the New York Department of Financial Services, and Commissioner Christy Goldsmith Romero of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission are among the featured speakers at the Chainalysis Links 2023 conference that runs Tuesday through Wednesday. Chainalysis co-founder and Chief Strategy Officer Jonathan Levin will host Noah Perlman, global chief compliance officer at Binance, for a fireside chat on compliance on the first day of the event. 

Thasunda Brown Duckett, CEO of Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association of America, will speak at the CNBC Equity and Opportunity Forum session, “Closing the Racial Retirement Gap,” on Tuesday. 

White House pushes for midsize bank re-regulation, large banks to foot the bailout bill

• The White House called on several federal agencies to work in tandem with the Treasury Department to reinstate rules for midsize banks with assets between $100 billion and $250 billion, including rules around liquidity requirements, stress testing and strengthening supervisory tools to ensure banks can weather climbing interest rates. (Bloomberg)
• Facing political pressure to spare smaller banks from the fallout of the collapses and subsequent FDIC receivership of Signature Bank and Silicon Valley Bank, agency officials are considering saddling large banks with a bigger-than-usual portion of the $23 billion in costs it faces, according to people with knowledge of the matter. (Bloomberg)

Bank regulators get a grilling

• Federal Reserve Vice Chair for Supervision Michael Barr said during a Senate Banking Committee hearing on the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank that regulators were aware of some of the problems facing the bank in late 2021, but he was only made personally aware of the severity of the situation in February. Barr said tighter regulation and supervision is a likely outcome of the Fed’s review of the oversight of SVB, which is set to be released by May 1. (The New York Times)
• Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Chairman Martin Gruenberg said in prepared remarks ahead of the Senate hearing that the agency may consider changes to deposit insurance levels, while Barr said in written testimony that the banking failures were a “textbook case of mismanagement.” (The Wall Street Journal) 
• Nellie Liang, undersecretary for domestic finance at the Treasury Department, said in prepared remarks to lawmakers that her agency would be prepared to again take action to rescue depositors and prevent contagion, noting that midsize, small and community banks “serve a vital role in providing credit and financial support to families and small businesses.” (Bloomberg)

The debt clock ticks

• House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said House Republicans could move ahead with their own bill to raise the federal debt ceiling and slash up to $130 billion in federal spending, noting that the GOP is “very close” on moving forward with a bill, and “if the president doesn’t act, then we will.” The White House has remained firm in its position that it would not entertain the use of the debt ceiling as a bargaining chip in federal spending negotiations. (The Washington Post)

Banga seen as sure thing to head World Bank 

• Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen told lawmakers that she expects Ajay Banga, the former Mastercard Inc. chief executive nominated by Biden to head the World Bank, to be elected to the position. Although private nominations could be made, two people familiar with the situation said they weren’t aware of any other nominees ahead of yesterday’s 6 p.m. nomination deadline. (Financial Times) 
• As of Thursday, the World Bank confirmed that Banga was the only candidate in the running. (ABC News)

Binance sued by CFTC

• The CFTC sued Binance, its co-founder, Changpeng Zhao, and its former chief compliance officer, Samuel Lim, over alleged violations of the Commodity Exchange Act, including rules around money laundering and terrorism financing. The CFTC alleged that China-based Binance actively obscured where its subsidiaries were located, solicited U.S. users and subverted its own “ineffective compliance program.” (CNBC)

First Citizens scoops up the remainder of SVB

• North Carolina-based First Citizens Bancshares Inc. said it will buy $110 billion of Silicon Valley Bank’s assets, $56 billion of its deposits and $72 billion of loans, per the latest information from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. The former branches of SVB, which was placed in FDIC receivership after a run on the bank led to its collapse, began operating last week as “Silicon Valley Bank, a division of First Citizens Bank.” (CNN)
  

$5.2 trillion

That’s the total amount currently sitting in U.S. money-market funds, a new record reached after $66 billion flowed into those funds last week. In prepared remarks for a Thursday speech, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen expressed worries about the risk to such funds from volatile investor behavior, saying, “If there is any place where the vulnerabilities of the system to runs and fire sales have been clear-cut, it is money market funds.”

1) Where Financial Risk Lies, in 12 Charts

Shane Shifflett and Danny Dougherty, The Wall Street Journal

2) Biden to push new banking rules after Silicon Valley Bank collapse

Jeff Stein and Rachel Siegel, The Washington Post

3) How Bank Oversight Failed: The Economy Changed, Regulators Didn’t

 Andrew Ackerman et al., The Wall Street Journal

4) Home sales turn corner due to mortgage easing

Courtenay Brown, Axios

5) Why Americans are so pessimistic about their finances

Catherine Rampell, The Washington Post

6) Here’s What Retirement Looks Like in America in Six Charts

Veronica Dagher et al., The Wall Street Journal

7) Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act Betrayal

Joe Manchin, The Wall Street Journal

8) The initial banking crisis is easing. Another may be around the corner.

Jeff Stein, The Washington Post

9)  Silicon Valley Bank has a new owner. What it means for the bank crisis
Mark Thompson et al., CNN

10) Why It’s Now Easier to Underestimate Your Expenses and Overspend

Veronica Dagher, The Wall Street Journal

• Google Co-founder, Other Billionaires Are Issued Subpoenas in Lawsuit Over JPMorgan’s Ties to Jeffrey Epstein (The Wall Street Journal)
• Wells Fargo to pay $97 mln for sanctions compliance failures (Reuters)
• Apple launches ‘buy now, pay later’ service in the US (Financial Times)
• FDIC plans to return $4B in Signature crypto deposits ‘by early next week’ — Martin Gruenberg (CoinTelegraph)
• Sam Bankman-Fried allegedly bribed one Chinese official with $40 million (NBC News)
• Voyager Digital’s Sale to Binance.US Halted by District Court (Bloomberg)
• U.S. Treasury to Change Proposed Corporate-Ownership Reporting Form (The Wall Street Journal)
• Fed’s Kashkari says stress in banking sector brings the U.S. closer to recession (CNBC)
• Fed’s Jefferson: Stress among small, regional banks, could hit small businesses hardest (Reuters)
• US Mulls More Support for Banks While Giving First Republic Time (Bloomberg)