Bill Foster

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Mr. Speaker, I thank Representative Stutzman for his partnership on this legislation and my colleagues on the House Financial Services Committee for their unanimous support of the bipartisan FUTURES Act. The FUTURES Act takes important first steps to modernize the financial regulatory regime and ensures that regulators have appropriate tools for the 21st century. It requires Federal banking regulators and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to regularly review their technological systems and procurement practices to ensure that they are well-equipped to address emerging threats. Agencies will examine whether they have access to the right information when they need it and whether they have systems in place to identify rapidly emerging risk. The bill then asks regulators to develop a plan to address any technology gaps that they identify, requiring additional reviews every 5 years. As we saw with the bank failures in 2023, 24-hour banking tools and social media-fueled panic can intensify bank runs and increase the risk of contagion. Silicon Valley Bank's depositors attempted to withdraw $42 billion from the bank in 24 hours, with more than $100 billion in additional withdrawals requested before it was shut down and put into receivership by the FDIC. This bill comes at a time when financial institutions and regulators are responding to new opportunities and challenges stemming from emerging technologies. Artificial intelligence and agentic commerce have great potential benefits for consumers and businesses, but they also have the potential to supercharge cybersecurity risk, contagion, and fraud, and can destabilize our financial system far more quickly than in years past. At the same time, these technologies provide tools that regulators and financial institutions can use to improve and simplify bank supervision, to identify suspicious activity, and to improve the quality of customer service. Maintenance of a well-regulated financial system requires continual investment in new tools, a workforce with the necessary technical skills, and streamlined procurement rules that allow regulators to keep up with rapid developments in the private sector. I support this forward-looking and bipartisan bill, and I encourage my colleagues to vote ``yes.''