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“On the other hand, private equity firms and debt funds, in the likes of Blackstone and Citadel, would not be required to increase their capital requirements. This would mean that apart from the competition they bring to investment banks, these non-banks entities have a lot of room to hire more people, according to Mayra Rodriguez Valladares, managing principal at capital markets consultancy MRV Associates.”

“As these charges pile on, Goldman Sachs will be compelled to do everything it can to settle this case,” said Mayra Rodriguez Valladares, a bank and capital markets regulatory consultant at MRV Associates. “If not, it runs the risk that more adverse news will be coming out if it gets embroiled in litigation.” “The longer this goes on, Goldman Sachs will have to increase its reserve to pay for legal costs. In addition, the more that this scandal drags out, bank regulators in Malaysia and the US are likely to send in bank examiners to conduct specialty exams to compel Goldman Sachs to improve its risk management and its controls,” she told Asia Times.

“There are so many advisors that you can shop around for advisors who charge the least fees,” says Mayra Rodriguez Valladares, managing principal at MRV Associates and a bank regulatory and capital markets consultant based in New York. “Always make sure to ask your advisor what he or she invests in to see if they have skin in the game.”

“For Mayra Rodriguez Valladares, managing consultant at MRV Associates, the collection and exploitation of data is a major strength for BigTech. “They know how to collect data, they know how to parse it, they know how to differentiate between good data and bad data. That data has unbelievable value. “These companies know exactly what we like, don’t like, what we buy, what our health condition is, what our political views are, and how we’re connected to other people. They are in a much better position than the banks when it comes to targeting and selling financial products. They know if we have kids or not, so know what kind of insurance to offer. They know if we’re in college and need loans.”

“The non-banks like Blackstone and Citadel, they don’t have the capital requirements that the banks do; they’re more nimble, they can hire a lot of people and take on riskier transactions,” according to Mayra Rodriguez Valladares, managing principal at capital markets consultancy MRV Associates.

Taken together, the findings from the FDIC, the Federal Reserve and the Bank of England would appear to challenge some policymakers’ claims that banks’ exposure to leveraged lending is minimal, said Mayra Rodríguez Valladares, a financial regulations consultant.