Years after they were first launched, in-plan annuities, meant to help retirement-plan participants turn their nest eggs into regular income streams, remain fairly rare.

Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. is proposing a wide-ranging settlement of its outstanding derivatives trades with more than a dozen of its largest counterparties, including some of the biggest banks.

HighTower Advisors of Chicago has hired a three-member team of Morgan Stanley Smith Barney veterans to its Palm Desert, Calif., office.

The Citigroup mortgage unit is not the first lender to be tripped up by California law requiring the interest payments on escrow impound accounts.

The Tulsa, Okla., bank is adding Jim Thompson as director of senior housing investments.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency has appeared willing to take its own steps to reform Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, but legislation would be necessary to create an explicit guarantee of the mortgage system.

The FHFA should focus on the facts as it ponders the future of the Federal Home Loan Bank System.

Sens. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Pat Toomey, R-Pa., have joined forces to subject regional Fed banks to heightened public scrutiny. How long the coalition lasts depends on what that new scrutiny reveals.

The agency is needlessly raising banks' costs at a time of severe economic uncertainty.