Insights: Financials

Student Lending

Following the release of President Trump’s Executive Order (EO) directing the “dismantling” of the Department of Education (DoEd), key Republicans in Congress – including Senate HELP Chair Cassidy (R-LA) – indicated they would introduce legislation to effectuate the closure of the agency. Meanwhile, with the passage this week of the House/Senate...

Crypto (Stablecoins/Market Structure)

Senate Banking Committee (SBC) Chair Scott (R-SC) said this week that he foresees stablecoin legislation coming to the floor for a vote in May, and that he’s working on a compromise version of the bill with House Financial Services Committee (HFSC) Chair Hill (R-AR) before this occurs. The SBC passed stablecoin legislation (the GENIUS Act) by a...

Bank Capital/Liquidity

Secretary Bessent gave a speech this week in which he indicated Treasury plans to play a central role in re-shaping financial regulation. He outlined his views generally and signaled direction on a number of issues, including Basel III, SLR, and stress tests/SCB. Bessent’s speech builds on Trump’s comment that, “The Fed has done a terrible job...

Energy, Financials, Healthcare, Macro, Tech / Media / Telecom

Senate Republicans are this week planning to begin consideration of a joint budget resolution that will eventually get adopted by the House as well. It appears Republicans are preparing to forgo the typical process for agreeing in the context of the budget resolution on the basic parameters of how they’ll achieve spending cuts, and will wait...

Energy, Financials, Healthcare, Macro, Tech / Media / Telecom

Senate Republicans continue to deliberate over the major issues associated with a single, broad-based budget resolution that allows for large-scale tax cuts and spending reductions, as was passed by the House and endorsed by President Trump (versus the narrower Senate-passed version that just focuses on border and defense spending). House...

Financials, Mergers & Acquisitions

Capital One/Discover

Going into the end of last week, it appeared that the Capital One/Discover deal would be subject to the more permissive bank M&A regulatory framework that we expect the Trump administration to pursue in the coming years. In fact, the CFPB dropped its lawsuit against Capital One, which suggested the Trump administration was inclined to look at the...