Wall Street regulator steps down

Benjamin Lawsky, widely viewed as one of Wall Street’s toughest regulators, resigned Wednesday to start his own technology-based political consulting firm.

As superintendent of the New York State Department of Financial Services (NYDFS), Lawsky frequently found himself butting heads with big banks during his four-year tenure.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) tapped Lawsky to lead the agency that Cuomo created following the economic collapse. 

{mosads}”I am deeply proud of the work our team has done building this new agency and helping strengthen oversight of the financial markets,” Lawsky said in a statement. “On a personal level, I am deeply grateful to the Governor, who has been an incredible mentor and amazing friend to me over the past eight years.”

Lawsky, who served as former chief counsel to Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), will reportedly start his own consulting firm.

On the same day of his resignation, NYDFS officials announced that Barclays will pay $2.4 billion and terminate eight employees to settle charges it manipulated financial markets.

It was part of a larger nearly $6 billion settlement including Citigroup, JPMorgan and the Royal Bank of Scotland with authorities that was announced earlier Wednesday. 

Lawsky’s move to technology-based consulting makes sense.

The top Wall Street watchdog led the charge during his tenure to heighten cybersecurity and bitcoin regulations on the financial sector. Lawsky conducted extensive studies that exposed the shortcomings of banks’ security policies, gave cyber issues greater weight during banking inspections and heightened disclosure requirements for firms using digital currency.

Lawsky was not adverse to technology, though. He approved the first bitcoin exchange to be regulated as a bank, a major victory for digital currency advocates trying to make bitcoin more mainstream.