Emily Flitter

WASHINGTON — Bankers are cheering the Small Business Administration's decision to double the amount of goodwill value that can be financed in a loan to purchase a small business.

We’re firing up our Week Ahead post now that the August recess is over. It looks like Congress’ first week back won’t be entirely consumed with the healthcare reform debate after all: Hearings in the House Financial Services Committee and the Senate Banking Committee promise to revive discussion over regulatory restructuring and the effectiveness of the Obama administration’s financial rescue efforts.

In its updated Standard Operating Procedure, the SBA raised the limit on the amount of "goodwill" value a lender could finance when making a loan to the buyer of a small business.

It’s something we struggle with from our earliest days at school: the art of sharing. But should the grownups at the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission really be spending their time on it? Some of the witnesses at day two of the joint hearings on harmonizing regulation between the two agencies didn’t think so.

WASHINGTON — Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are seeking significant revisions to a regulatory rule that forces them to submit all new products and activities for review, arguing it is too restrictive and goes against congressional intent.

It’s funny how the tables turn: Before he was confirmed, Commodity Futures Trading Commission Chairman Gary Gensler faced a slew of criticism from members of Congress for being soft on derivatives regulation back in the ‘90s. Now Gensler’s golden and it’s Mary Schapiro, the chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, who has to deal with past demons.

Two regulators charged with overseeing derivatives markets will begin joint hearings on regulatory harmonization today. Findings during the hearing could offer further indications of how the new regulatory landscape for derivatives will look.

A self-regulatory group that oversees businesses' advertising campaigns has reprimanded U.S. Bank for claims the U.S. Bancorp unit made during a push to win over credit card customers cut loose during an airline merger.

Defending a shareholder suit has cost Fannie Mae nearly $4 million in 2009; Ben Bernanke a victim of identity theft; FDIC director calls it a career after 33 years at the agency.

Not everyone is thrilled with Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke’s re-nomination to a second term at the Fed, and Columbia Journalism Review blogger Ryan Chittum has begun to chronicle the critics. He describes Breakingviews’ arguments against keeping Bernanke, and summarizes a disapproving op-ed by Stephen Roach, a Morgan Stanley executive, in today’s Financial Times. Thos two naysayers aren’t alone. Amar Bhide, a visiting scholar at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, sparred yesterday on CNBC with Roger Altman, a former Deputy Treasury Secretary.

There’s a new list out of the world’s safest banks and there aren’t very many Americans institutions on it. Global Finance Magazine today released its annual assessment, based on credit ratings, of the top 50 safest banks out of the world’s largest 500. The first U.S. bank on the list comes in at No. 32: It is Bank of New York Mellon.

The Federal Reserve lost a lawsuit yesterday, and the decision could hold implications for the future of emergency borrowing and programs like the Talf. A U.S. District judge in Manhattan ordered the Fed to turn over information that journalists had requested about the identities of banks borrowing from the Fed and the collateral they’d posted to do so. When Bloomberg LP filed the suit last November at the height of the credit crunch, a win seemed nearly impossible. But now it’s a reality. Will the threat of exposure put bankers off the Talf? Will it make them less likely to borrow form the discount window when they’re in trouble? The answer seems to depend on what happens next.

It was no secret that the Obama administration was gunning for strict regulation of the previously unbridled over-the-counter derivatives markets. But bankers were still caught off guard by the apparent severity of the 115 pages of legislation the Treasury Department released this month.

Guaranty Bank, a $13.5 billion-asset Austin thrift, failed on Friday and was scooped up by a Spanish-owned bank.

Forbes published its list of the 100 most powerful women in the world today and Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Chairman Sheila Bair has come in second yet again. She was beat out for the top spot by German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and she leads PepsiCo’ Chief Executive Indira Nooyi, who took third place.

The moral protest over the idea of bank bailouts has made its way into the court system. A lawsuit filed yesterday in Illinois charged Wells Fargo with violating fair lending laws by lowering a home equity borrower’s line of credit based on an unsubstantiated appraisal of his house. The complaint is a class-action suit representing all of the home equity borrowers who were similarly hit with reduced credit lines, but it also appeals to a vaguer sense of inequity with a passage highlighting Wells Fargo’s $25 billion share of handouts from the Troubled Asset Relief Program.

Last night The Bank Lawyer--blogger Kevin Funnell--offered a theory about why the Independent Community Bankers of America is supporting the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.’s plan to raise capital requirements for private equity investors buying failed banks. He said it seemed that the ICBA expected the rule-change to steer more private equity firms toward stakes in troubled-but-still-standing institutions. Would it work? Funnell didn’t think so. But private equity bidders may find deals with still-operational banks to be sweeter and easier to get.

We almost feel sorry for the guy. As a frequent witness on the Hill recently, Treasury Secretary Geithner has already spent hours and hours answering softball questions with no good follow-ups. Now he faces hundreds more—from the readers of the Wall Street Journal. Turns out the WSJ readers who sent in questions aren’t much more curious than Congress is. They certainly aren’t any more focused.

Today American Banker is reporting that banks are worried they’ll face excessive scrutiny by the new proposed consumer products regulator compared with other types of financial services providers. In the article, bankers argued that non-bank lenders, such as mortgage companies and payday lenders, which would also fall under the purview of the regulator, would be too hard to identify and track. Examiners would want to stick to what they knew—banks, which would be easier to find and monitor.

He may have violated procedure, but perhaps the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. ought to give him some special recognition for keeping down costs to the Deposit Insurance Fund: A Seattle-area bank teller lost his job after chasing down a would-be bank robber.