The housing market appears to be picking up some momentum after slowing for much of the last year. Numerous data points released over the past week point to the sector beginning to strengthen, buoyed by falling mortgage rates. (ABA Banking Journal)

Big banks know they need to change with the times. And to do that, many are striking partnership deals or buying into nimble start-up competitors as an alternative to building out costly internal technology projects. (CNBC)

To find out how banks are now managing social media, ABA surveyed more than 430 banks of all sizes. The 2019 report, The State of Social Media in Banking, provides a detailed status on where banks stand on social—and what’s changed in recent years. (ABA Banking Journal)

In this podcast episode, ABA accounting experts Michael Gullette and Joshua Stein discuss some of the key CECL developments, including the proposal of a three-year delay for private and smaller public companies, the introduction of bipartisan bills that would require the Financial Accounting Standards Board to pause CECL implementation pending a quantitative impact study, and questions over the readiness of the audit sector for CECL. (ABA Banking Journal)

Income inequality in the United States has hit its highest level since the Census Bureau started tracking it more than five decades ago, even as the nation’s poverty and unemployment rates are at historic lows, according to data released this week. (Washington Post)

As expected, the Federal Reserve’s interest-setting Federal Open Market Committee voted to lower the target range for the Federal Funds Rate by 0.25 percent last week. The announcement came in the wake of a rather unexpected bout of turbulence in the repo markets and was greeted with denunciations by the White House. (The Hill)

In a press conference this week, ABA President and CEO Rob Nichols joined Reps. Ed Perlmutter (D-Colo.), Steve Stivers (R-Ohio) and Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.) in congratulating members of the House for passage of the SAFE Banking Act, a landmark bill that would help to rectify the differences between federal and state law with regard to cannabis in the 33 states that have voted to legalize it. (ABA Banking Journal)

As the Federal Reserve develops its own faster payments system, it must focus on ensuring interoperability between the existing RTP Network, ABA said in a statement for the record submitted ahead of a Senate Banking Committee hearing this week.(ABA Banking Journal)

ABA joined a group of financial trade associations in a letter to Senate Banking Committee leaders endorsing the Illicit Cash Act, a bipartisan bill that would create a secure beneficial ownership registry of legal entities, to be overseen by the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network and the Treasury Department. (ABA Banking Journal)

ABA has filed a comment letter urging the Securities and Exchange Commission to modernize its regulations on Rule 144A securities in order to maintain a level playing field between bank-maintained collective investment funds and mutual funds. (ABA Banking Journal)