The US Federal Reserve is weighing a plan that would allow big foreign banks to avoid costly regulatory changes that were meant to prevent derivatives trading from being subsidised by US taxpayers.
The changes arise from a measure known in the financial industry as the Lincoln amendment, named for Blanche Lincoln, former US senator. It was included in the 2010 overhaul of US regulation known as Dodd-Frank.
Her amendment in effect prohibits banks that have access to US government-provided deposit insurance or Fed credit facilities from acting as derivatives dealers, on the basis that the taxpayer-provided safety net may subsidise such activities. There are some exceptions.