{"text":[[{"start":9.1,"text":"Two years ago, the US was on the brink of its most serious set of bank failures since the financial storm of 2008. "},{"start":15.966999999999999,"text":"A clutch of regional banks, some the size of Europe’s larger lenders, hit the skids, including Silicon Valley Bank, whose demise came close to sparking a full-blown crisis. "},{"start":25.734,"text":"SVB’s crash had several immediate causes. "},{"start":28.714,"text":"Its bond holdings were crumbling in value as US interest rates pushed higher. "},{"start":32.944,"text":"With just a few taps on an app, the bank’s spooked and interconnected tech customer base yanked out deposits at an unsustainable pace, leaving multimillionaires crying out for federal assistance. "}],[{"start":43.04,"text":"The swift crisis-cauterising skills regulators forged in the fire of 2008 helped avert a broader financial contagion. "},{"start":50.007,"text":"The grim episode should loom large in the minds of US President Donald Trump’s trigger-happy, anti-regulation financial sheriffs. "},{"start":56.861999999999995,"text":"After all, the US Federal Reserve identified the lighter supervisory burden placed on smaller banks like SVB in his first term in 2018 as a key ingredient in its failure. "}],[{"start":67.55,"text":"The US’s byzantine maze of overlapping federal- and state-level financial regulators is indeed ripe for simplification and reform. "},{"start":74.804,"text":"The personnel shift at the most senior levels in Trump’s new administration, however, points to deregulation for its own sake, not an incisive efficiency drive. "},{"start":83.722,"text":"Holders of bank stocks are licking their lips. "},{"start":86.227,"text":"Bonus-hungry dealmakers reckon an impending bonfire of red tape will open up lucrative opportunities for lenders. "},{"start":92.182,"text":"But every serious banker knows that a haphazard cull of regulation risks storing up trouble for a later date. "}],[{"start":98.11,"text":"Bogeyman to the deregulation agenda, Gary Gensler, departed the Securities and Exchange Commission, the key financial markets watchdog, shortly before the new president was sworn in. "},{"start":108.539,"text":"Paul Atkins is lined up to replace him, and has a long history of opposing big corporate fines on the grounds that they hurt shareholders. "}],[{"start":116.28,"text":"Martin Gruenberg, chair of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, is likely to be replaced by Travis Hill, who wants a lighter touch approach to capital requirements and fintech regulation. "},{"start":126.547,"text":"Next is the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which has paused regulatory work under Russell Vought. "},{"start":132.052,"text":"The hardline conservative, who has been the body’s acting head, describes it as “woke”. "}],[{"start":137.22,"text":"Trump’s embrace of cryptocurrencies is particularly concerning. "},{"start":140.999,"text":"He has laid the groundwork for a possible national strategic reserve of the speculative tokens, backed crypto projects launched by his sons, and started his own memecoin. "},{"start":149.879,"text":"Newly proposed changes to accounting guidance would also make it much easier for banks and asset managers to hold crypto tokens — a move that pulls the highly volatile asset closer to the heart of the financial system. "}],[{"start":160.82,"text":"Where the US banking system goes, other major financial centres will be tempted to follow. "},{"start":166.037,"text":"The EU and the UK have already cooled on onerous capital requirements for banks under the “endgame” to Basel III, following the US’s lead. "},{"start":173.492,"text":"But given the breadth of America’s plans to slash financial red-tape, the risk of a broader race to the bottom in regulatory standards remains. "}],[{"start":181.73,"text":"The wave of deregulation is “a huge mistake and will be dangerous”, said Ken Wilcox, who was chief executive of SVB for a decade up to 2011. "},{"start":190.522,"text":"“Without good banking regulators, banks will run amok,” he told the FT’s sister publication The Banker. "},{"start":196.38899999999998,"text":"Trump himself will probably dodge any fallout from this regulatory free-for-all in banking and finance: problems deep inside the financial system often take years to develop into visible crises. "},{"start":206.444,"text":"But if the new administration engages in thoughtless regulatory cuts, we could all feel the effects soon enough. "}],[{"start":212.14999999999998,"text":""}]],"url":"https://creatives.ftmailbox.cn/album/193203-1739852889.mp3"}