Biden Nominates Hawaii's Commissioner to Stability Council

By Allison Bell

News June 18, 2024 at 03:39 PM

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President Joe Biden has nominated Gordon Ito to be the member of the federal Financial Stability Oversight Council with insurance expertise.

The council helps the U.S. Treasury Department, the Federal Reserve Board and other financial services regulatory agencies spot and track risks that could threaten the stability of the U.S. financial system.

Ito served as the Hawaii insurance commissioner from 2010 through 2018 and then returned as commissioner in 2022.

If confirmed by the Senate, he would succeed Thomas Workman, Workman previously was the president of the Life Insurance Council of New York.

What it means: Ito could soon be entrusted to keep unexpected problems with loans, insurance companies' assets, cryptocurrency or factors to be named later from tanking the economy.

He would play an especially important role because most Stability Council members are heads of federal banking and securities regulatory agencies who know little about insurance, which is mostly regulated by the states.

Gordon Ito: Ito has a bachelor's degree in business and a law degree from the University of Hawaii.

In 2018, he was the secretary-treasurer at the National Association of Insurance Commissioners.

The agenda: Some of the items on Ito's watch list could be the problems in the office market, which have affected insurance companies' investments in commercial mortgages and related classes of assets, and the effects of the damage that climate-related disasters can do to lenders and investors.

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