Welcome back…
TOMORROW STARTS TONIGHT – – > INSIDE EX-IM’s STOPGAP-STRATEGY: Ex-Im supporters shifted their strategy Monday in an effort to save the Bank from shutting down on Sept. 30. Talk of a long-term extension is dead for the immediate future, multiple sources working on the Bank’s reauthorization told OVERNIGHT FINANCE.
{mosads}Instead, Ex-Im supporters want a short-term reauthorization that coincides with the same period of time as the continuing resolution (CR), which Congress must also approve before Sept. 30 to prevent a government shutdown.
The bank’s critics are looking to offer a longer-term reauthorization deal that would extend Ex-Im into early next year. But supporters view this ploy as a political Trojan horse.
— THE MONEY QUOTE: “A short term CR that leaves Ex-Im hanging out on its own into 2015 is a death knell for the bank,” said a former senior Ex-Im official who is working to reauthorize the bank. “This is the Tea Party’s alternative to killing it now strategy: Put it on life support into 2015 then kill it altogether.”
DAYS UNTIL EX-IM EXPIRES: 22.
THIS IS OVERNIGHT FINANCE, where we’re still celebrating the Eagles’ win last night (as well as Washington’s loss. How soon till this town turns on RGIII?). Tweet: @kevcirilli; email: kcirilli@digital-release.thehill.com; and subscribe: http://bit.ly/1jNxwa2
Big day on Capitol Hill tomorrow…
HEARING PREP – – > We’ve got your one-stop shop for tomorrow’s 10 a.m. Banking Committee hearing on Wall Street reform. It’ll feature the top regulators from the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, among others. View their testimony: http://1.usa.gov/1ug2SIB
— What to watch: Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) could offer clues on how he’d run the Senate Banking Committee if he were to take over as chairman next year. Meanwhile, Republicans will continue to criticize the CFPB. But this is also the first time SEC Chairwoman Mary Jo White has hit the Hill following the leak of a damning internal inspector general report faulting SEC commissioners with how they treat non-public, market-sensitive data.
ON-TAP FOR THE WEEK – – > Mark your calendars for a busy week in the financial services world. This week is all about the short-term budget resolution that Congress needs to pass by Sept. 30 or else face a government shutdown. My take for The Hill: http://bit.ly/1usWH2U.
…ON-TAP IN ‘VERY NEAR FUTURE’ – – > ACTION ON INVERSIONS. Treasury Secretary Jack Lew said Monday that the Obama administration would decide ‘in the very near future’ whether to take executive action against U.S. companies shifting their legal address abroad for tax purposes, or “inverting.” Bernie Becker for the hometown paper: http://bit.ly/1oZm86K.
— Meanwhile, a senior aide to Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) told me that Schumer will likely unveil an anti-inversion bill that would overturn any inversions as far back as 1994. While that bill likely won’t go anywhere, it does set a progressive marker on the issue from the Senate’s No. 3 Democrat. Back-story on Schumer’s bill: http://bit.ly/1s4jXEz.
SAC-ed BEHIND BARS, Matthew Goldstein reports for DealBook: “Mathew Martoma was sentenced to nine years in prison on Monday for carrying out one of the biggest insider trading schemes on record in 2008 when he was working as a portfolio manager at Steven A. Cohen’s former hedge fund, SAC Capital Advisors.” http://nyti.ms/1q7OH81.
VITTER FIGHTS FOR STANFORD PONZI-SCHEME VICTIMS, via me: Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) on Monday criticized the Securities and Exchange Commission for not appealing a court decision that ruled that victims of a multi-billion-dollar Ponzi scheme are not eligible to get their money back. http://bit.ly/1BnWPUG.
APPLE READIES FOR MOBILE-PAYMENTS. Don’t be fooled by tomorrow’s buzz of shiny new Apple products. Whether or not it’s unveiled tomorrow, Apple’s rumored iWallet could transform the retail industry’s options regarding mobile payments (read: they won’t be stuck with big financial institutions), a lobbying war that has long been waged in Washington.
MarketWatch: “Apple is reportedly working with Dutch chip maker NXP to add secure, short-range wireless technology into future iPhones, which would allow consumers to wave or tap their phones at store checkouts to pay.”
“Whether such technology will make it into the iPhone 6 isn’t 100% certain, but some reports are already listing a few major retailers as on board with the payments system. And, perhaps more importantly, Apple’s entry into the mobile-payments market may signal that people are finally willing to trust their smartphones as virtual wallets.” http://on.mktw.net/WAl4iz.
Meanwhile, in Washington…
HAPPENING WEDNESDAY: The Merchant Financial Cybersecurity Partnership, led by the Financial Services Roundtable and the Retail Industry Leaders Association, which includes 19 merchant and financial trade associations, hosts “Cybersecurity: Protecting the Payments System.”
— THE GUEST-LIST: Michael Daniel, special assistant to the president and cyber-security coordinator; Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.), chairman of the House Select Committee on Intelligence; Joe Demarest, assistant director of the FBI; senior vice presidents from Walmart, VISA, and MasterCard; FSR CEO Tim Pawlenty, also a former GOP presidential candidate. RSVP HERE.
— WHAT TO EXPECT: Lots of reaction about the recent Home Depot data breach. Home Depot officials confirmed the data breach, but wouldn’t confirm any more details. Do we have another Target on our hands? NBC News on the brewing data breach: http://nbcnews.to/1ArUBB2.
RUSSIA WARNS AGAINST NEW US SANCTIONS. Rebecca Shabad for The Hill: “Russia’s prime minister warned in an interview published Monday that Moscow would respond ‘asymmetrically’ if the United States and Europe impose new sanctions.
“‘If there are sanctions related to the energy sector, or further restrictions on Russia‘s financial sector, we will have to respond asymmetrically,’ Dmitry Medvedev told Russian daily Vedomosti, according to The Guardian.
Medvedev suggested one possible retaliatory move could entail preventing airlines from flying through Russian airspace.” Full story: http://bit.ly/1BnYQQF
SPORTS BLINK – – > Why the NCAA was wrong to reduce Penn State’s sanctions, by USA Today’s Nina Mandell: “[By] reducing the sanctions, the NCAA went back on the statement that it made — not only to the fans of Penn State and college football, but to the victims the university failed to protect.” Read this: http://usat.ly/1s5iaPC.
QUOTABLE, WH press secretary Josh Earnest at today’s press briefing re: Ray Rice: “This administration and this president do believe strongly that the scourge of violence against women is something that needs to be aggressively combated. I don’t want to comment on the individual decisions that are made by, in this case, by an individual football team.
“But you have seen the president and the vice president make very forceful public comments in talking about how important it is for men in particular to step up and step forward and make clear that violence against women is something that is not and cannot be tolerated.” Justin Sink for The Hill: http://bit.ly/1rTUyzj.
ARE MARKETS MORE DOVISH THAN THE FED? Pedro Da Costa for the WSJ: “Investors may be growing a little too comfortable with the prospect that Federal Reserve officials will leave interest rates near rock-bottom lows for the foreseeable future, according to a research note from the San Francisco Fed published Monday.
“Evidence based on surveys, market expectations, and model estimates show that the public seems to expect a more accommodative policy than Federal Open Market Committee participants,” write San Francisco Fed economists Jens Christensen and Simon Kwan. “The public also may be less uncertain about these forecasts than policy makers.” http://on.wsj.com/1ArOwEQ
HOUSING WATCH – – > Vicki Needham reports on how Banking Chairman Tim Johnson (D-S.D.) and ranking member Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) are touting the new CBO numbers: “Authors of a massive housing finance industry overhaul said that a recent Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report provides further proof that their legislation would save taxpayers billions and reduce risk.
“The CBO estimates that a bipartisan measure approved by the Senate Banking Committee in May would save $58 billion over 10 years.” http://bit.ly/1lRDHLn.
MORE EX-IM, via me: Tea Party groups like Heritage Action are urging House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) not to walk back on his anti-Ex-Im comments from June. They wrote to McCarthy today urging him to oppose the bank’s reauthorization.
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This post was updated at 9:15 p.m.