The Financial Planning Coalition, a group that includes several organizations representing thousands of financial advisors, last week released a copy of a petition it sent to the Securities and Exchange Commission, asking the regulatory agency to extend the definition of fiduciary standard to include "anyone providing personalized investment advice to retail clients."

The money stream is flowing again. After two years of stagnant or shrinking revenue, the 50 largest independent broker-dealers reported that annual revenues rebounded last year.

Private banks and wealth managers must adapt to far higher expectations from clients and a new set of regulations. Those that can't simply won't survive, according to a global survey of senior industry executives.

With the agency mulling changes to the “Qualified Mortgage” regulation, mortgage lenders say little-known standards for how they document a borrower’s income would be a good place to start.

Banks currently can help their CRA performance with mortgages to anyone in a distressed neighborhood, but Joseph Otting said officials crafting a reform plan are considering limiting that to lower-income borrowers.

The head of the Senate Banking Committee invited the housing secretary to Idaho to discuss low-income housing shortages.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency head has said: "The status quo is not acceptable." She could not be more correct.

The only way for Fincen to assure that banks have the tools to identify illicit shell companies is for the agency to verify the information in its new beneficial ownership database.

The lack of housing — particularly on the lower price range — is becoming an increasingly urgent political issue. But it's also a twisted bramble of tradeoffs that politicians are reluctant to touch.