In This Issue:

Leading the Past Week; Legislative Branch; House of Representatives; Executive Branch; and Upcoming Hearings.

Excerpt from Leading the Past Week

This past week marked the beginning of Presidential politics inserting itself into Congressional legislating as Mitt Romney‘s statement about the need to hold down student interest rates certainly played a large role in the House vote on Friday. We also watched how Congress and the Administration debate amongst themselves in implementing the Dodd-Frank Reforms, first as the House overwhelming passed a bill to "clarify" as-to-yet unfinalized rules on swap dealers, and then the regulatory back and forth about the scope of the Volcker rule saw its latest chapter, with 22 Senate Democrats writing the regulators to "fully implement" the law. In other news, there was yet another example of the US Government getting involved in the nascent, yet burgeoning field of mobile payments as the FTC held a daylong conference to bring various stakeholders together to address the myriad of issues facing companies, consumers and regulators.

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