Katherine Kane

"So what does designating some institutions as SIFIs mean for small businesses?" writes Forbes contributor Ryan Caldbeck. "While we don’t know the whole story yet, the answer, to date, appears to be very little."

The CFPB isn’t going away, and if Romney’s elected president there’s a good chance the leadership structure will change in the long run. It's the short run scenario that could get interesting.

A report by Federal Financial Analytics concludes that the FDIC has made admirable progress implementing the part of the Dodd-Frank Act that gives it the authority to unwind large financial companies in trouble, but there are are still a number of outstanding issues that need to be resolved.

The CFPB announced that it will soon be supervising large consumer debt collections firms.

"A critical mass of angst and dissatisfaction with the Dodd-Frank Act and Basel III is opening the door to change," writes Barbara Rehm. If you want to read the brightest mind on the topic, check out Karen Shaw Petrou's assessments, she says.

The slew of mortgage rules coming down the pike tops the list for mortgage lender angst. And it's not just lenders who are concerned. Fair lending advocates worry about tighter standards leading to a squeeze on credit.

Legal violations in student loan servicing may be worse than those in mortgage servicing for borrowers in the militar, says the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the Defense Department. So the two are joining forces to help stop it.

"Analytical, calm and unbiased," is how his former colleagues describe Steven Antonakes, the CFPB's associate director for supervision, enforcement and fair lending. And it's not just fellow regulators signing his praises, industry veterans view him as being constructive force.

House Financial Services Committee Chairman Spencer Bachus released a report arguing how the Dodd-Frank Act didn’t end too-big-to-fail policies. This comes on the heels of Barney Frank’s report arguing that it did.

The Bipartisan Policy Center is launching Financial Regulatory Reform Initiative to evaluate the effectiveness of the Dodd-Frank Act.

Student loan borrowers have been sharing their complaints with the CFPB, and the stories "bear an uncanny resemblance to problematic practices uncovered in the mortgage servicing business," says the agency's student loan ombudsman in a report to Congress.

Lenders and consumer advocates are critical of a probable CFPB compromise in which lenders get safe habor from ability-to-pay lawsuits for all "qualified mortgages" except for those with subprime interest rates.

Repeal Dodd-Frank and replace it with what? "Possible replacements are unlikely to work or to be politically feasible," writes Steven M. Davidoff. And big banks have been getting bigger because it makes economic sense for them, not because Dodd-Frank is spurring them on, he argues.

In response to repeated charges from Republicans that the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act enshrines too-big-to-fail policies, Barney Frank issued a paper analyzing how the legislation ends them.

The CFPB may have found a middle way on the safe harbor vs. "rebuttable presumption" debate in the forthcoming "qualified mortage standard. Lenders might get protection from lawsuits about ability-to-pay considerations, but only when the interest rate is in an average range

The process for assigning Legal Entity Identifiers is causing conflict on the global regulatory scene. At issue: Who gets to assign them? Some folks are just glad the CFTC is rolling ahead with a plan, but members of the official implementation group have concerns about how it might hinder broad adoption.

The Dodd-Frank Act puts lots of new requirements on hedge funds. Are the new regulations cramping fund managers' style? A new survey says no, and that the funding industry is "adjusting well."

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has attempted to reassure lenders that their attorney-client privilege will be protected in any information turned over to the agency. But lender and their lawyers are not convinced.

After being the first bank penalized by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Capital One will be facing a challenge to make sure the integration its recent acquisitions, HSCB's credit card portfolio and ING Direct, doesn't trip the CFPB's concerns.

"It was more like a poke in the eye with a sharp stick" says former FDIC chair Shelia Bair in response to Mitt Romney's assertion during the first presidential debate that the "systemically important" designation under Dodd-Frank was a the "biggest kiss" to Wall Street.