Jeff Horwitz

A dry-as-dirt technical dispute over unique codes used to identify market participants has roiled a global effort to standardize financial data.

Former FDIC chairman Sheila Bair, who vocally criticized the Citigroup bailouts in her new book, said Friday that she sees few growth prospects for the bank.

After government-subsidized servicing transfers to Fortress's Nationstar stopped, the company kept expanding through private market deals with innovative financing structures. But as it bids for the massive ResCap portfolio, the GSEs' good will remains a valuable asset.

Receiving Wide Coverage ...An Actual Romney Reboot? The papers are awash with recaps of the first presidential debate, in which Obama and Romney argued over healthcare, taxes… and banks! Being who we are, we'll stick to the outlets that covered the banking news. Romney hit Obama on the slow pace of establishing a definition for a qualified residential mortgage (undeniable even if the immediately beneficial effect of having a rule in place is unclear) and Dodd-Frank, which the Republican described as "the biggest kiss that's been given to New York banks I've ever seen." (We can think of several executives of large banks who would disagree.) From across the pond, the Financial Times declares Romney the winner.

Nationstar has figured out how to profit from troubled loans that have bedeviled major banks. It also seems to be producing better outcomes for borrowers and the government.

Nationstar Mortgage went from private equity flop to a top servicer of troubled loans, thanks to deft management and a Fannie Mae partnership once hidden even from parts of the government.

One year after the Durbin Amendment slashed debit interchange payments to banks, there’s scant evidence that retailers are lowering prices as promised.

The debate over whether caps on interchange fees were good for consumers is alive and well at the Durbin Amendment's one-year anniversary — even as banks' interchange revenues recover.

In an attempt to compensate for higher foreclosure related losses, the Federal Housing Finance Agency is proposing that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac charge higher fees on new loans in five states.

Fannie Mae had little choice but to pay a premium to Bank of America to free up pools of loans so that it could put them in better hands, an inspector general's report finds.

Echoing elements of the mortgage robo-signing controversy, investigators are looking at whether JPMorgan Chase and other banks botched the documentation and amounts owed on credit card debts they sold.

By prodding Freddie Mac to pursue more loan putbacks, the FHFA's inspector general has proven itself willing and able to force confrontation between the GSEs and their customers.

JPMorgan would like to dock CEO Jamie Dimon's pay in the wake of a giant trading loss without actually making him suffer. If anyone can find a fix, its compensation committee can.

Fourteen years and one near-collapse following its merger with Travelers Insurance Group, the company's mix of business and geographic concentrations closely resemble that of the original Citicorp.

Lacking the authority to control fellow regulators' data operations, the Office of Financial Research may still play an important risk management role — but only by getting along with other agencies.

Risk management still has its weak spots, despite the valuable lessons banks learned from the financial crisis. Practitioners wonder if stopping the next blow-up is even a reasonable goal for the profession.

Lenders embrace the concept of simpler mortgage disclosures but want the bureau to fix shortcomings of the APR before making it the focal point of rule changes.

In a series of letters, the agency asked Assurant to break out revenues in states investigating the industry and assess the effect such probes would have on its bottom line.

Criticized in the past for its high fees, the company rolls out a new flat-fee account that does away with charges for bounced checks, account inactivity and using out-of-network ATMs.

A discount title insurer has secured backing from an international reinsurer for its bid to start an industry price fight.