Regional Banks Should Draw More Scrutiny, Lazard’s McGuire Says

(Bloomberg) — Regional and small banks should fall under more monitoring to prevent future crises undermining financial stability, Ray McGuire, president of Lazard Ltd., said at a Bloomberg New Voices event in Washington.

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“I wouldn’t say we are out of the woods. We still need to monitor this,” McGuire said Thursday.

March was one of the worst months for the financial industry in years, featuring two of the largest bank failures since the 2008 financial crisis.

The collapse of crypto-friendly lender Silvergate Capital Corp. and failures of regional institutions Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank undermined confidence in the banking system and prompted calls for more scrutiny. Although the situation has calmed, regulators still face questions about the ability of other lenders to withstand stress.

Drawing a comparison between regulations and sports, McGuire said after the 2008 crisis, there were “too many referees on the field.”

“I think we relaxed a little bit” since then, he added. “I think we can tighten it up a little bit.”

McGuire also rejected statements made from some Republican lawmakers and politicians that the failure at SVB resulted from what they called “wokeness,” or adherence to socially conscious investing.

“I would reject summarily the notion that Silicon Valley Bank’s failure is due to wokeness on the board— there’s no evidence of that,” McGuire said. “Risk management, yes. Wokeness, no.”

McGuire took his role as president of Lazard in April. He was formerly the vice chairman of Citigroup after spending over a decade at the company. He ran for mayor of New York in 2021, losing the Democratic primary to Eric Adams, who now holds the office.

–With assistance from Katanga Johnson.

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