MNI TRANSCRIPT: Powell on Mortgage Market Regulation

     WASHINGTON (MNI) - The following is the portion of a transcript from

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell's press conference on Wednesday:

     Q: I won't ask about regulatory forbearance. It was put into place in

various jurisdictions can apply to the mortgage market to prevent banks from

foreclosing amid the widespread financial hardships caused by the pandemic. With

many of those happening and many businesses and households in dire financial

straits, is any consideration being given at the fed to more regulatory

forbearance measures to prevent businesses from going under because they can't

meet the payments? There have been some tweets to the paycheck protection

program to address this, but I wanted to ask about the regulatory side as well.

     A: We can make changes to bank regulation and supervision. I don't know

that we have the ability to make changes, for example in mortgage payments if

that's what you think of or credit card payments. That's something that could be

legislative or it could just be what the banks themselves are doing. There's a

tremendous amount of forbearance on the parts of banks. Those aren't decisions

we hold any legal authority to make. By the way, we have encouraged those

decisions. I hope that's responsive to your question.

--MNI Washington Bureau; +1 202 371 2121; email: ryan.hauser@marketnews.com

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