Financial Regulatory Week Ahead
Senate Banking Holds Confirmation Hearing for a New CFPB Director, Prediction Markets Get A Hard Look in the House, and CFPB Close to New Consumer Financial Data Rule
July 20 - 24, 2026
Capitol Hill may be enveloped in a thick smoky haze from wildfires up north, but key congressional committees are still gearing up for a busy week next week. The Senate Banking Committee is holding a confirmation hearing this coming Thursday for President Trump’s third nominee to serve as Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Brian Johnson.
The previous two nominees were Jonathan McKiernan (who was instead nominated to serve as Treasury Undersecretary for Domestic Finance, a role he held until last week)and Stuart Levenbach (whose nomination was yanked to make him Chair of the Interagency Council on Statistical Policy).
Johnson has a strong background in financial regulation. He is a former senior bank lawyer who later served at the CFPB in 2017. He then went to work at Patomak Global Partners, a strategy/risk management/regulatory affairs consultancy founded by current SEC Chair Paul Atkins. Johnson went from there to Capital One, where he was Vice President and Chief U.S. Card Compliance Officer.
We think he’s likely to get grilled by Committee Democrats for his closeness to the industry and for having served at a major credit card company – but it’s highly likely he ultimately gets confirmed.
Others joining Johnson at the hearing include John Crews, a member of the board of the National Credit Union Administration (NCUA). He’ll be the first new NCUA board member since early last year, when President Trump fired the Democratic members of the board. Currently, Crews is serving as the Treasury Deputy Assistant Secretary for Financial Institutions. And previously, he was the Banking Committee’s Policy Director – so the hearing will be something of a homecoming.
Also, this coming week, the House Agriculture Committee will hold a hearing titled “Examining Customer Protections and Market Integrity in Sports Event Prediction Markets.” While focused on sports betting, the timing could not be better, as it was discovered this past week that the White House teleprompter operator was making large bets in the prediction market Kalshi on what President Trump was going to say in his speeches(he’s been suspended from his job).
Looking at what happened last week, we would note that Federal Reserve Board Chair Kevin Warsh made some interesting comments in his House and Senate hearings about regulation. When asked by Senator Katie Britt (R-Ala) about the Fed’s effort on bank regulation tailoring, Warsh said:
“…broadly, I’ll step back and say modernizing our banking system, streamlining regulations so that the rules that apply to the systemically important financial institutions are not one size fits all for every other. The secret to the American economy is we have a few 1000 banks and other providers of credit who know their smaller markets bigger. I’d rather have that system than what most of our G20 peers have, where they have a half a dozen institutions implicitly backed by their government. I think reform is coming to supervision and regulation.
I have my own ideas that might be as dramatic as I’ve already shared on monetary policy here, and I think the sooner we can get to the bottom of it, the better. If I could say one more thing, the reforms we’ve been putting in place over the last 15 years, coming out of Dodd-Frank, as we learned in the Silicon Valley Bank example, in the First Republic example, they didn’t work perfectly. My predecessors had very little choice but then to do another overall bailout. We don’t want that to happen again, so we want to tailor the rules and the capital, so they serve the best interests of the US economy, which I describe as a system that is safe, sound, and competitive.”
Also last week, Acting CFPB Director Russ Vought revealed the CFPB is close to unveiling a rewrite of regulations governing access to consumers’ financial data– rewriting Section 1033 of the Dodd-Frank Act. The Biden Administration rule – which was blocked by a federal judge - banned banks from charging for access to their customers’ financial data.
That rule hit Fintech firms, digital asset companies, and retailers who heavily rely on that data for their payment platforms (which made banks happy). But fintech and crypto firms rallied, lobbying Vought hard to rewrite the rule rather than letting the court strike it down. Vought’s comments served as something of a starter gun for a new and very tough battle between banks and the fintech/crypto worlds, which is likely to go on for some time.
Below is the full report on financial regulatory-related events this week. Please let us know if you have any questions.
U.S. Congressional Hearings
U.S. Senate
· Thursday, July 23, 10:00 a.m. – The Senate Banking Committee will meet in Executive Session to vote on the nomination Dr. Christopher Phelan, to be Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, Executive Office of the President; John Crews, to be a Member of the National Credit Union Administration; and Jeffrey Ledbetter, to be Inspector General, Department of Housing and Urban Development. The Committee then will conduct a hearing for Brian Johnson, to be Director, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau; Ms. Abby Warren, to be Assistant Secretary, Department of Commerce; and Irving Dennis, to be Chief Financial Officer, Department of Housing and Urban Development.
House of Representatives
· Tuesday, July 21, 10:00 a.m. – The House Financial Services Committee’s National Security, Illicit Finance, and International Financial Institutions Subcommittee hearing on “Oversight of the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network.”
· Tuesday, July 21, 10:00 a.m. - The House Agriculture Committee’s Commodity Markets, Digital Assets, and Rural Development Subcommittee holds a hearing on “Examining Prediction Markets: Customer Protections and Market Integrity in Sports Event Markets.”
· Tuesday, July 21, 2:00 p.m. – The House Financial Services Committee’s Financial Services Housing and Insurance Subcommittee holds a hearing on “Oversight of the Federal Home Loan Bank System.”
Federal Department & Regulatory Agency Meetings & Events
The White House
· There are no significant events scheduled at this time.
Federal Reserve Board and Federal Reserve Banks
Speeches –
· The Federal Reserve Board is in a Quiet Period in advance of the July 28-29 Federal Open Market Committee meeting.
Conferences –
· There are no significant events scheduled at this time.
U.S. Treasury Department
· There are no significant events scheduled at this time.
Department of Commerce
· There are no significant events scheduled at this time.
Department of Housing and Urban Development
· There are no significant events scheduled at this time.
Securities and Exchange Commission
· July 21, 10:00 a.m. – The SEC holds a meeting of the Small Business Capital Formation Advisory Committee to discuss matters relating to rules and regulations affecting small and emerging businesses and their investors under the federal securities laws.
Commodity Futures Trading Commission
· There are no significant events scheduled at this time.
Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation
· There are no significant events scheduled at this time.
Office of the Comptroller of the Currency
· Nothing significant to report.
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
· Thursday, July 23, 10:00 a.m. – The Senate Banking Committee holds a confirmation hearing for Brian Johnson to be Director, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
FINRA
· There are no significant events scheduled at this time.
National Credit Union Administration
· There are no significant events scheduled at this time.
Federal Trade Commission & Department of Justice Antitrust Division
· Nothing significant to report.
Farm Credit Administration
· Nothing significant to report.
Farm Credit System Insurance Corporation
· Nothing significant to report.
International Monetary Fund & World Bank
· Nothing significant to report.
North American Securities Administrators Association
· There are no significant events scheduled at this time.
Small Business Administration
· There are no significant events scheduled at this time.
Trade Associations & Think Tank Events
Trade Associations
· Tuesday, July 21, 1:45 a.m. – SIFMA holds a member briefing on the US Economic Outlook.
· Wednesday -Thursday, July 22 – 23 – The National Council of Farmer Cooperatives holds its 2026 Washington Conference. House Ways and Means Chairman Jason Smith, (R-Mo.) delivers remarks on “House Tax & Trade Priorities.”
· Thursday, July 23, 10:30 a.m. – SIFMA co-hosts with Deloitte a Forum entitled “Scaling AI Maturity in Financial Services.”
Think Tanks and Other Events
· July 21 – 22 - The Brookings Institution Hutchins Center on Fiscal & Monetary Policy; Purdue University Mitch Daniels School of Business; Brandeis School of Business and Economics Rosenberg Institute of Global Science; and the University of Texas at Austin Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs hold its annual Municipal Finance Conference in Washington, D.C.
· July 21 – 23 – The Association of Government Accountants holds its Professional Development Training 2026 in Washington, D.C.
· Tuesday, July 21, 2:30 p.m. – The CATO institute is holding a policy forum entitled “A Forum for Lasting Affordability”
Recommended Reading
It’s Time for Ottawa to Fulfill its Responsibility on Systemic Risk and Market Enforcement C.D. Howe Institute
In a new report from the Toronto-based think tank, the authors call for Ottawa to revive key elements of the unfinished capital markets reform agenda. “Rather than reopening the long-running debate over a single national securities regulator, the report focuses on what tools are needed to manage systemic risk and strengthen criminal enforcement of capital market misconduct.”
Why is bank enforcement declining? Aaron Klein and Cameron Connell, Brookings Institution
Enforcement of rules by bank regulators has declined, as measured by formal enforcement actions. The decline in enforcement has occurred across administrations, in contrast to the narrative of a pendulum of enforcement that swings between Democratic and Republican administrations. Instead, the data show a stepwise decline in enforcement in which subsequent administrations either maintain lower enforcement rates or continue to decrease enforcement. Enforcement decline varies substantially by regulator: the sharpest decline is at the Federal Reserve (Fed), where formal enforcement actions have fallen by nearly 50 percent since Covid.
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