Kate Berry

The mortgage market is reeling from the central bank's strategy of raising rates and reducing its holdings of mortgage-backed securities. Lenders face the worst headwinds in more than a decade.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's rules and enforcement actions to date could be open to legal challenges by banks and other companies after a three-judge panel deemed the agency's payday lending rule unconstitutional because of the way the agency is funded, legal experts say.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit overturned a lower court's ruling, declaring the agency's funding structure and its 2017 payday lending rule invalid.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency's tangible capital rule could prevent some banks from accessing advances from the Federal Home Loan Bank system in a rising interest rate environment.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., has been raising the alarm bells about fraud on the bank-owned payments platform, but independently verifiable data that might inform policymaking is hard to come by.

Rising interest rates could force some community banks to fall below a critical capital threshold that the Federal Housing Finance Agency uses to determine eligibility for Home Loan bank advances.

Dozens of community bankers and housing experts offered their opinions on the Federal Home Loan Bank System, the first review in nearly 100 years. But the insurers, nonbanks and megabanks that use the system the most were largely absent from the debate.

Four of the seven large banks that own Zelle's parent company, Early Warning Services, said they are reimbursing 15% to 55% of consumers that report fraud on their accounts, according to a report released by Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency got an earful from housing experts at a listening session intended to aid a comprehensive review of the financing system.

A federal judge found that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau overstated the costs and understated the negative impact of exempting 1,700 financial institutions from reporting Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data.

The trade groups, including the American Bankers Association, allege the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau exceeded its authority by claiming discrimination in any financial product violates the federal prohibition on "unfair, deceptive or abusive acts or practices."

The president referred to so-called bank junk fees in remarks that echoed Rohit Chopra, the director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, who has sought to crack down on excessive charges.

Financial institutions continue to push back against efforts to be held liable when a consumer is tricked into sending a payment that later turns out to be a scam.

Late penalties on credit cards are set to rise 9% in 2023 under current rules that allow for increases tied to the Consumer Price Index. But Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Director Rohit Chopra says he wants to issue a regulation that could undo that inflation-related exception to limits on fees that banks may charge cardholders.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau director is looking at "small ways" to hold peer-to-peer payment providers responsible for investigating allegations of fraud under the Electronic Fund Transfer Act.

A couple squatted in their foreclosed home since 2009 and are only now being evicted, highlighting stubborn problems in the foreclosure process.

An appeals court ruled that the electronic delivery of private information that was not made public did not constitute real harm to the consumer.

A Government Accountability Office report found that regulators scaled back supervisory examinations during the pandemic in part because of banks' technological shortcomings.

Though fewer people are writing checks, banks of all sizes are seeing a massive increase in check fraud since 2020. Recouping losses from bad checks is pitting banks against each other, and regulators may have to weigh in.

The reduction in banks' assessments marks the fourth time in four years that the OCC has cut the semiannual regulatory fees that fund supervisory work.