Bank CEOs warn about a looming recession

Usually when lawmakers have the opportunity to question the nation’s top banking CEOs under oath there’s no shortage of fiery exchanges.

Today’s hearing was a big outlier.

That was especially evident when Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a fierce critic of Wall Street, got all eight CEOs to agree with her that cryptocurrency platforms should have to adhere to the same anti-money-laundering rules as banks.

While bank CEOs have already been very vocal about their opposition to a series of new regulations that could go into effect in the coming years, the hearing served as a platform for them to persuade more lawmakers who may be on the fence.

The proposed regulation, known as Basel III Endgame, would force banks to set aside more funds to cushion against potential future losses. The eight bank CEOs testifying on Wednesday told lawmakers they would not encounter any issues meeting the new requirements. At the same time, they said it would harm consumers and businesses because banks would not have as much funds available to lend out, which would result in them having to charge higher interest rates.

In addition, the bank leaders said it would negatively impact first-time homebuyers and people saving for retirement.

Democratic senators Sherrod Brown and John Fetterman were the only lawmakers at Wednesday’s hearing who pushed back against the CEOs’ claims they have sufficient guardrails in place to shield them from a bank failure and that forcing them to hold more capital would harm the economy.

All the other senators at Wednesday’s hearing either agreed with the bank CEOs’ claims about the impact of Basel III or did not bring it up.

Few bank CEOs were asked to share their assessments of how the US economy is faring, something that typically comes up at these hearings, given how much information banks have on the health of consumers based on their account and transaction data.