2021-01-22 Fintech Loves This Rumored Biden Nominee A leading contender to run the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, Michael Barr, has a particular cheering section among the shadiest of online financial operators.
Barr’s name is familiar, but that is not a good thing. Keeping the former Tim Geithner–era Treasury Department official from confirmation to a Federal Reserve Board of Governors position became a heated and ultimately successful campaign for progressives in 2014. Barr was a key figure in the crafting of the Dodd-Frank financial reform, and a willing destroyer of more progressive ideas for it, on behalf of the Obama administration. His rumored appointment is particularly dispiriting for progressives who hoped that Mehrsa Baradaran, a law professor and expert on the racial wealth gap, would win the OCC appointment.
Jubilant at Barr’s elevation, however, are the fintech and cryptocurrency sectors. “Fintech” refers to the quickly burgeoning world of borrowing and financial services apps that often look and act as predatory as payday lenders but have much snappier graphic design. “Crypto” is shorthand for the smattering of unregulated digital currencies currently being pumped and dumped and used for money laundering, among other things. Fintech luminaries, publications, and cryptocurrency mavens across the board are cheering the possible appointment of the person who should, in theory, be tasked with regulating them.
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