This week, Washington pundits have been transfixed by the travails of big tech. No wonder: the sight of Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook founder, testifying to Congress has been almost as mesmerising as seeing the banking titans face grillings during the financial crisis.

But that does not mean Wall Street should be ignored. Far from it. Away from the cameras, some notable developments have also just occurred. On Tuesday, the US Federal Reserve proposed streamlining its stress tests in ways that would give relief to smaller banks and relaxing some of the assumptions in ways that would make it harder for the largest lenders to fail.

Then on Wednesday, the Fed and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency introduced proposals to “tailor leverage ratio requirements to the business activities and risk profiles of the largest domestic firms”. In plain English, this means banks can operate with a little less capital to absorb losses, provided they are focused on safe(ish) activities such as holding government bonds.