Lael Brainard, a member of the Federal Reserve Board since June 2014 and vice-chair since 2022, has stepped down from her position in order to become director of the National Economic Council, effectively becoming president Joe Biden’s most senior economic adviser.

US Treasury warns on cloud risks for financial services
Report suggests that there needs to be better information sharing and collaboration between cloud service providers, firms and regulators.
FCA faces climate disclosure legal challenge
Environmental lawyers have lodged a complaint with the high court over the FCA’s approval of a prospectus with “inadequate” climate risk disclosures

ECB to monitor banks on digital transformation
The bank will undertake targeted reviews and on-site inspections where it feels further investigation is needed

Regulators consider voluntary carbon market involvement
Regulators are considering the extent to which they should be intervening to ensure voluntary carbon markets are functioning effectively. Is the industry best placed to police itself or is formal action needed by supervisors?
ASIC launches greenwashing legal case against pension fund Mercer
The court action is the first time the regulator has brought legal action for alleged greenwashing

WhatsApp fines: is the regulatory net widening?
US broker-dealers were under the spotlight last year for electronic communications record-keeping failures, but they are not the only firms facing regulatory probes.

Some US banks too big to manage and could be broken up
Some US banks are so large now that they could be too big to manage (TBTM) and therefore may need breaking up, said Michael Hsu, acting comptroller of the currency.
ECB boosts co-operation with six non-eurozone member states
The European Central Bank (ECB) has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the six EU member states not part of European banking supervision, to boost supervisory co-operation.

US ESG backlash: a tide-turning moment?
Anti-ESG sentiment dramatically came to the surface in the US last year with a series of high-profile Republican-led manoeuvres. But how disruptive to the growing ESG tide will this pushback really be?