At least one community banker was unimpressed with Bernake's defense of central bank oversight of holding companies and state banks.

Everyone’s talking about the forthcoming sequel to “Wall Street,” but the new movie that may best capture public sentiment about the current financial crisis is a work of science fiction.

Consumers are warming up to using their mobile phones to manage their bank accounts, but some wonder whether people want to use them to pay for items in stores or to transfer money.

Over at Reuters, Felix Salmon is touting another kindler, gentler version of overdraft protection that he says is standard in the U.K. (Hint: it sounds a lot like what USAA offers.)

Does overdraft protection have to be an all-or-nothing proposition? Obviously, no one wants to pay a $35 overdraft fee on the proverbial $5 cup of coffee. But a number of people might be willing to pay that sum to stop a $1500 mortgage check from bouncing.

An unprecedented rise in enforcement actions against banks has caught even longtime industry observers off guard.

There are plenty of stories about people changing careers when their jobs in finance disappeared. But according to LinkedIn, the social networking Web site, people who transitioned to other industries were the exception. Most stayed in the financial space.

While the Obama administration has punted into next year any decision on how to reform the housing finance giants, there's no shortage of opinion about what should be done.

As the winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics and a longtime economics professor at Princeton, there is little doubt Paul Krugman knows more about financial services than most. Which makes it all the more unfortunate that his recent op-ed arguing against passage of financial reform is so, well, uninformed.

Host Jon Stewart's extensively detailed rant mocked both credit cardholders and issuers for their behavior. "All we needed was the information ... Like when they put up the calorie charts at McDonald's ... and you continued to eat no matter what."

Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae have been stepping up their repurchase requests since being put into conservatorship by the government in September 2008, as they try to manage the mountain of delinquencies on their books. But as those requests multiply, it's clear lenders aren't just rolling over.

ICBA chief Cam Fine is having a field day with Wells Fargo's new ad campaign, which the fourth-largest banking company is using to tag itself as the "largest community bank."

More community banks appear interested in bidding for failed peers as their own health improves and the number of targets is expected to multiply. Do you think they have a shot?

With $30 billion pledged to help community banks boost small-business lending, do you think struggling community banks should have access to the funds? Let us know.

While U.S. policymakers are looking at ways to make credit more available to small businesses, a survey by the National Federation of Independent Business portrays the credit crunch as less of a current challenge for its constituents, and more of a potential one — if fundamental business conditions improve and borrowing needs increase.