What were banking's big wins in 2025?

Five DC Policy Wins for Banks in 2025

Thanks to Members of Congress that were helped by Friends of Traditional Banking and their allies, this past year saw several big policy wins in Washington. As we head towards the holidays and a new year, here are five policy wins we are grateful for:

1) Passage of the GENIUS Act — Stablecoin Regulatory Framework

• Congress passed the Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins Act (GENIUS Act) in July 2025, and it was signed into law.

• This is the first major federal regulatory framework for stablecoins, clarifying legal status and requirements for stablecoin issuers — a big win for the banking and crypto-adjacent financial sector by reducing regulatory uncertainty.

2) Congress (and GOP Leadership) Push to Cut CFPB Funding

• Senate Republicans drove efforts to slash the funding of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) — the unaccountable agency created by Elizabeth Warren that has pursued enforcement actions against banks.

• Reduced CFPB funding can better restrict overregulation and force the agency to prioritize protecting consumers over “witch hunts” against customer-focused banks.

3) Deregulatory Overhaul of the Financial Stability Oversight Council

• Treasury and GOP-aligned regulators restructured the FSOC with a deregulatory mandate, aiming to ease burdens on banks and financial firms by shifting focus away from preventative regulation.

• This realignment is considered a policy win that complements congressional actions favoring the banking sector.

4) Withdrawal of Leveraged-Lending Guidance

• Federal regulators (OCC & FDIC) withdrew longstanding leveraged-lending guidance, which had limited banks’ involvement in higher-leverage corporate loans.

• Removing the guidance is favorable to banks’ competitive positioning versus private lenders.

5) Easing of Bank Capital & Leverage Requirements

• The FDIC approved relaxed capital and leverage rules, reducing how much capital large banks must hold against certain assets.

• This change reduces compliance costs and frees up capital for lending — a long-sought priority for banks.

What is Friends of Traditional Banking (FOTB)?

We are a non-partisan grassroots effort, organized by bankers. We are Main Street, not Wall Street; we are traditional community bankers, not investment bankers.

There are over 30,000 of us from coast to coast (including YOU!). There is no cost to be on the list for FOTB, and we won't spam you (just this monthly newsletter).

We choose two or three Congressional races each cycle that are hypercritical to banking, and encourage our membership to donate directly to those campaigns.

We're the inverse of a PAC--instead of spreading a little bit of money to a lot of campaigns, we focus a lot of money on a couple of key campaigns. These money bombs WORK. We encourage our members to support the PACs run by ICBA, ABA, and their local state associations. All are important arrows in the quiver of the banking industry, and all of these help shape Washington in different ways!

BANKER NEWS BITS:

According to the Consumer Finance Monitor, CFPB tells President, Congress it will need $279.6 million to continue statutorily required operations through September 30, 2026. Trump Administration officials, including Vought, have said they want to abolish the CFPB. In an October media appearance, Vought said he expects the bureau to cease operations in two or three months.

Borrowers will cheer the news of a Fed rate cut to end 2025 when lenders respond by lowering their own rates. Savers, not so much. NerdWallet looks at how the Fed's last rate cut of 2025 affects you. The Fed opted for a 25-basis-point cut, bringing the federal funds rate down to a range of 3.50% to 3.75%.

Politico reports that Democrats are pushing back on Senate Banking Chair Tim Scott’s plan to hold a crypto bill markup next week. they hope to strengthen prohibitions on stablecoin yield payments and further address concerns about illicit finance,

Fifth Third signs deal making fintech firm Brex the provider of its commercial cards, according to CNBC. The program will run on Brex’s embedded payments platform and be backed by AI tools. Fifth Third is also in the process of acquiring Comerica, a deal expected to make it the ninth largest U.S. bank.

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PAID for by Friends of Traditional Banking. NOT authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee.

Friends of Traditional Banking is a non-partisan grassroots effort organized by bankers in 2012 to improve the political and regulatory environment for the traditional banking industry in the U.S. FOTB is the inverse of a PAC--instead of spreading a little bit of money to a lot of campaigns, they focus a lot of money on a couple of key campaigns.