Washington (awp/afp) – The vice-president of the American Federal Reserve (Fed), responsible for banking supervision, Michael Barr, announced his resignation on Monday, thus avoiding a confrontation with the future occupant of the White House, Donald Trump.
“The risk of conflict around this function risks distracting us from our mission [de supervision et de régulation du système financier]”, indicates the official in a press release from the central bank.
“In the current environment, I felt that I would be most useful to the American people in my role as [simple] governor,” continues Mr. Barr, a few days before President Donald Trump takes office on January 20.
The choice of the future holder of the position could lead to a decline in the regulation of the financial system.
On the contrary, the Fed wanted to strengthen it to come closer to the Basel III criteria, a wide range of international reforms of the banking sector, initiated after the financial crisis of 2008-2009 in order to strengthen the solidity of banks.
Michael Barr, whose position was created after the 2008 financial crisis, was appointed by outgoing Democratic President Joe Biden.
His resignation, effective no later than February 28, will allow Donald Trump to choose his successor from among the members of the board of governors deemed closer to his ideas.
One of them, a governor appointed by Donald Trump, Michelle Bowman, systematically opposed Michael Barr’s attempts to strengthen banking regulation.
“Michael Barr was not up to his duties,” said Republican Senator Tim Scott, according to comments reported on X by the Republican team of the Senate Banking Committee.
“I stand ready to work with President Trump to ensure that we have responsible financial regulators in charge,” he added.
The index tracking the stock market performance of the main American banks increased by around 1.9% around 12:20 p.m. (5:20 p.m. GMT), a few hours after the announcement of the manager’s resignation.
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