Citizens Financial Group will acquire boutique bank JPM for $149 million, its fourth acquisition this year following its purchases of HSBC's east coast bank branches, Investors Bancorp and valuation consulting firm Willamette Management Associates. Donald McCree, vice-chair and head of commercial banking, said the JPM deal will take the bank "into a couple of areas where we don't have a significant presence currently, notably equities and equity capital markets."

A PGIM survey shows 62% of advisors allocate clients' assets to actively managed investments compared to 34% for passive strategies and 4% to cash. Respondents cited reliability of income, emerging market opportunities, risk-adjusted returns and protection against market declines among the reasons for their preference.

Cryptocurrency is becoming more popular among consumers as it becomes more widely present in retail financial services. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., calls crypto the new "shadow bank," noting: "It provides many of the same services, but without the consumer protections or financial stability that back up the traditional system."

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency has proposed a reversal of Community Reinvestment Act fair lending rules that were updated in 2020. The proposal would eliminate the new rules by 2022 and return the framework set in 1995, with acting Comptroller Michael Hsu noting: "We're signaling to folks that we're going to get this thing done."

The recent oil price rally is encouraging US shale producers to step up hedging for future production, with an indicator of hedging activity hitting a five-month high in December, according to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. "Producers locked in a certain amount of wells at a certain price and hedging at $50 makes you look like a rockstar. This year will be about free cash flow," one shale executive said.