Lawmakers reluctant to offer community banks regulatory relief should consider the empirical evidence of how Dodd-Frank has hurt small lenders — and listen to the federal and state bank regulators calling for changes.

An overlooked issue in the plan to reform Federal Home Loan bank membership could inadvertently jeopardize the local focus of the system by allowing insurance companies to apply for membership in any of the 12 districts.

Wall Street Journal The Dodd-Frank restriction on the Federal Reserve's authority to be a lender of last resort poses a threat to financial stability, Glenn Hubbard, former chair of the Council of Economic Advisers under President George W. Bush, and Hal Scott, a Harvard Law School professor, write in an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal. Restrictions on federal guarantees for bank deposits and money market funds also contribute to the threat. The Fed's lender-of-last-resort authority…

A recap of the informed opinions (and the discussions they generated) on BankThink this week, including Dodd-Frank's impact on small institutions, Fed chair Janet Yellen's handling of attacks on her staff and Bitcoin's public but pseudonymous ledger.

Big banks are making critical risk management decisions with data that is old, incomplete or even inaccurate. This endangers the safety of the global financial system in more ways than one.

Receiving Wide Coverage ... CIT, Censures and Selfies: Bank chiefs don't often find themselves defending their business decisions to community members in a public hearing, but then again the $3.4 billion proposed merger between CIT Group and OneWest is a pretty big deal in more ways than one. CIT chief executive John Thain and OneWest CEO Joseph Otting told a panel of banking regulators in Los Angeles Thursday that their plan to create a $70 billion…

During Congressional testimony this week, Fed Chair Janet Yellen was sharply questioned about remarks made by Fed General Counsel Scott Alvarez expressing mild concern about a provision of Dodd-Frank. Yellen didn't defend Alvarez — or note that his comments actually reflected the view of the board.

The Obama administration's proposed bank tax would apply to all liabilities of large financial institutions — including their deposits. It's bad policy to tax the funding that banks use to make loans to consumers and businesses.

The Massachusetts senator recently argued that community banks have little need for regulatory relief. But a closer look at recent FDIC data shows that the health of small banks has taken a turn for the worse in the aftermath of Dodd-Frank.

Receiving Wide Coverage ... Morgan Stanley Strikes Deal with DOJ: Morgan Stanley has agreed to pay $2.6 billion to settle charges that it misled investors about the quality of mortgage-backed securities during the run-up to the financial crisis. The deal will make a significant dent in the bank's 2014 earnings, lowering net income by $2.7 billion, or more than a third. The amount of the penalty was higher than analysts expected, according to the Wall Street…

By prosecuting executives responsible for banks' misdeeds, the DOJ can curtail illegal activity and restore public trust in big banks — and in the law itself.

Congress should end Puerto Rico's exclusion from federal bankruptcy protection — but it's unfair to leave the territory's existing creditors in the lurch.

Receiving Wide Coverage ... The Oracle of D.C.: The papers offer varying interpretations of Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen's testimony before the Senate Banking Committee. The New York Times says Yellen sought to give the central bank leeway in the timeline of its interest-rate increase. Fed officials could firm up plans to raise rates as soon as June at a March policy meeting, but "Yellen emphasized that patience remained the Fed's watchword, and that the persistence…

The finance and technology industries should take some of the energy they've poured into mobile payments and put it toward making small-dollar loans more affordable.

Receiving Wide Coverage ... HSBC Sweats in the Spotlight: The hits keep on coming for HSBC. The U.K. bank on Monday announced subpar earnings for 2014 and lowered its financial targets, while chief executive Stuart Gulliver was pummeled with questions about the $7.7 million he opted to hold in a Swiss bank account through a Panamanian company until 2003. Tax experts tell the Times that Gulliver's arrangement was legal, but it's not terrific press for a…