Season Finale: Re-Thinking The Rules (S1 E10)

In the Banking Bad Season 1 finale, guest moderator Rob Blackwell joins banking experts Don Billings and C.K. Lee to challenge and assess the season’s key policy recommendations.

Should depositors be expected to police their banks? Can expanded guarantees stop contagion without encouraging excessive risk-taking? Would requiring more loss-absorbing debt help?

Drawing on experience in banking and regulation, the guests debate management and supervisory accountability, practical reforms to the Federal Reserve’s discount window, and the Federal Home Loan Banks’ role in troubled-bank funding.

They also look ahead to inflation, federal debt, fintech complexity, fraud, and changing payment systems—setting the stage for Season 2.

Guest Panel:

Rob Blackwell (Moderator)

Rob Blackwell is Chief Content Officer and Head of External Affairs for IntraFi. He is the host of the company’s “Banking with Interest” podcast, which features lawmakers, regulators, bank executives, journalists and others discussing the most important issues right now in banking policy. He is a frequent moderator and speaker at banking conferences and currently serves as vice chancellor of the Exchequer Club, a bipartisan club dedicated to discussion of vital topics in financial services.

Mr. Blackwell previously served as the Editor-in-Chief of American Banker and covered financial services as a journalist for nearly two decades. During his tenure, American Banker won more than a dozen major journalism awards, including its first Grand Neal Award. In 2017, Mr. Blackwell was awarded the Timothy White Award, which recognizes journalists who display "extraordinary courage, integrity, and passion."

Mr. Blackwell has appeared on NPR, BBC, CNBC, Fox Business and C-SPAN as an expert on financial regulatory policy. He received his BA from The College of William & Mary, and also studied at the University of St. Andrews, Scotland.

Don Billings

Don Billings has spent “way too many years” at the center of the financial services industry. He has worked with both Promontory Financial Group and KPMG consulted with clients around the world on navigating the Great Financial Crisis and working with banks and foreign governments on financial sector reform measures.

During the 1990s, Don represented the U.S. Treasury Department as senior adviser for financial institutions, based at the American Embassy in London. In this role, he managed the Treasury's work with central banks and ministries of finance in Russia and Eastern Europe in reforming their banking systems and privatizing the region’s leading banks.

Earlier in his career, he played key roles at both the FDIC and the Federal Reserve in the management of the banking crises of the 1980s.

Mr. Billings has a BA in economics from the University of California, Berkeley, attended the Universite Catholique de Louvain in Belgium, and is a Chartered Financial Analyst.

Mr. Billings has been a guest lecturer at the University of Michigan and Georgetown University. He serves on the University of California, San Diego’s Economics Roundtable Steering Committee, and as past chair of the City of San Diego’s public utilities oversight board. He is a member of the CFA Society of San Diego, a former board member of the Washington Society of Investment Analysts, and a founder of the CFA Society of Japan.

C.K. Lee

C.K. Lee is President and Chief Executive Officer at Interbank, a $5.2 billion commercial bank with more than 40 banking locations in Texas and Oklahoma. He is also President of Olney Bancshares of Texas, Inc., the holding company for InterBank. He is based in Fort Worth, TX.

Mr. Lee has prior experience as an investment banker, a bank regulator and as a staff member on Capitol Hill.

Mr. Lee serves on the boards of both InterBank and Olney Bancshares of Texas, Inc. He also serves on the Boards of Directors of the American Bonanza Society, the ABS Air Safety Foundation, the Dallas Symphony Orchestra and Operation Airdrop.

Mr. Lee grew up on a family farm near Ocala, FL. He attended the University of Florida and the London School of Economics.

He lives in Colleyville, TX with his wife and two daughters.