Sarah Bloom Raskin, Biden’s nominee for the Fed’s top banking job, has the Reserve Trust co-founder to defend her against accusations that she had conflicts of interest between government and private jobs in the past, Bloomberg reported on Friday, February 11. .
Some Senate Republicans have raised issues with Raskin’s work for Reserve Trust, a Colorado fintech offering payment processing and business-to-business (B2B) services, after his stint at the Fed under the Obama administration.
Reserve Trust had appealed the Kansas City Fed’s denial of its primary account application.
According to Dennis Gingold, co-founder and former chairman of Reserve Trust, Raskin’s conduct had been good and “proper, ethical and correct”. He said she had no role in the appeal and the only entities that worked on it were the attorneys and the state of Colorado.
According to the Kansas City Fed, although Raskin had communications with the central bank branch, Reserve Trust’s application was granted because the company had “changed its business model.” Colorado regulators had reinterpreted state law to allow the company to meet the definition of a depository institution.
See also: API Connects FinTechs to Fed Payment Rails
This contradicts information provided by Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.), a top Senate Republican, who cited a phone call he had with the Kansas City Fed President, Esther George, saying Raskin personally called about the reserve trust application after it was denied.
Raskin has already faced opposition from his ideological opponents, including Toomey, because of some of his past actions and political writings.
“It’s no surprise that the Reserve Trust founder thinks there’s nothing improper about hiring a former Fed governor to lobby his former colleague on behalf of his company,” Amanda said. Thompson, Toomey’s spokesperson.
PYMNTS wrote recently that Raskin said in January that she had “no idea” what the controversy was about and did not recall calling on behalf of the Reserve Trust.
Raskin, who left Reserve Trust in 2019, said she intended to do whatever she had to to clear things up for the Senate.
Read more: Fed nominee Raskin denies role in Fed Reserve Trust FinTech master account
——————————
NEW PYMNTS DATA: 70% OF BNPL USERS USE BANK PAYMENT OPTIONS, IF AVAILABLE
On: Seventy percent of BNPL users say they would prefer to use the installment plans offered by their banks – if only they were made available. PYMNTS’ Banking On Buy Now, Pay Later: Installment Payments and the Untapped Opportunity of FIssurveyed over 2,200 US consumers to better understand how consumers view banks as BNPL providers in a sea of BNPL pure-players.