This Week in ESG and Impact Investing

Photo by Charlie Gainey If the OCC’s bank merger symposium had to be summed up in three words, it would be this: more regulation needed. That was the takeaway I got from the speakers last week at the event . (OCC Bank Merger Symposium. Washington, D.C. Feb 10, 2023. ) Benjamin McDonough, the OCC’s chief counsel, put it best when he said that regulators need to “build a better mousetrap,” and that if the current regulations aren’t updated then harmful bank mergers will be likely to pass through. He followed up that “this mousetrap needs to be not only theoretically sound and consistent with our values, but also capable of implementation within the statutory criteria for merger review." Even Randal Quarles, the former supervision vice chair of the Federal Reserve, was quoted as saying that many see the current bank merger regulatory system as “a delphic and hermetic process that is very ad hoc… and then other people see a rubber stamp .” Another important note from the symposium co...