FinReg21 Exclusive News and Analysis

Recently, David S. Evans, Editor in Chief, interviewed Ken Chenault, Chairman and CEO of American Express, for PYMNTS.com’s Captains of the Industry Series. In part two of the two-part interview, Chenault weighs in on how the economy and government regulation will impact the payments industry, and how American Express will navigate these tricky waters. Since 2001, Ken has been the CEO of a company that has built a reputation and brand around the three pillars of security, service, and trust since 1850. From freight forwarding to traveler's checks, American Express has been shaping the payments industry.

Remember the Gang of Six – that group of three Democratic and three Republican senators that were going to hammer out a bipartisan bill on healthcare reform last summer?

It’s the statement of a confident man, and at 82, former Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker, something of a legend in his own time in the world of finance, is plenty confident.

What may be only the beginnings of a high-level political backlash against the banking industry gained some momentum this week.

Regulators will be bringing pressure on banks to make greater efforts to serve poorer communities after an FDIC survey showed that more than a quarter of U.S. households have little or no financial activity through banks.

The nation’s state-chartered credit unions have a long and successful history in the nation’s financial services industry. The first state credit union act was signed in Massachusetts in 1909. By 1934, forty-two states had enacted legislation to authorize state credit unions.

The watchdog for the bank bailout suggested in a report this week that the New York Federal Reserve Bank placed an unnecessary burden on taxpayers by paying AIG’s counterparties the full value of their credit default swaps instead of getting them to take partial payment.

Treasury Secretary Geithner and Congressional Democrats have called for ending competition between bank regulators, which they claim contributed to the crisis.