Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios
Top officers at America's largest bank lobbying organization are calling on the Fed not only to cut U.S. interest rates, but also to institute a series of reforms that were last put in place during the 2008 financial crisis.
What's happening: The president and CEO, the chief economist and the head of research of the Bank Policy Institute, which represents the nation's leading banks, posted a blog Sunday laying out a set of policy prescriptions they encourage the Fed to use to fight possible economic damage from the coronavirus outbreak.
- The proposals include cutting banks' reserve requirements to zero, lowering the Fed's discount borrowing rate, and several other measures designed to increase banks' resilience to a major financial shock.
Why it matters: The note shows how worried banking industry advocates are about the impact of COVID-19.
- It's also the latest example of the industry attempting to use a crisis to roll back Dodd-Frank financial regulations that were designed to prevent another market meltdown.
Watch this space: Since rates in the repo market spiked in September, the Fed has been working with officials at major financial institutions to revise some of its rules.
Go deeper: Federal Reserve: Coronavirus poses "evolving risk" to the economy