Banks and Their Customer Relationships: What is the Appropriate Role of Bank Regulators?

Consumer Finance Monitor

Our special guests are Professor Dru Stevenson, South Texas College of Law in Houston, and Brian Knight, Senior Research Fellow, Mercatus Center at George Mason University. In this episode, we first discuss the history of “Operation Chokepoint,” the Obama-era initiative in which the FDIC and other federal banking agencies targeted banks serving payday lenders and companies engaged in other “disfavored” industries. We then devote the remainder of the episode to a discussion of what is the appropriate role of bank regulators with regard to banks’ customer relationships, with our guests presenting opposing views on how regulators should use their authority to address reputational and other risks to banks arising from customer relationships.

Alan Kaplinsky, Senior Counsel in Ballard Spahr’s Consumer Financial Services Group, leads the conversation.