BankThink

Community bankers must adjust to new mortgage rules the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau issued on Thursday.

Recognition by a market-based standards organization such as ISO, in the form of a three-letter code, would set the stage for increasing market depth and liquidity of bitcoin trading — in turn facilitating overall consumer and merchant adoption.

Credit Union Journal's Frank Diekmann discusses the future of mobile, generating media coverage, and more.

Michael Faughnan, managing director of fixed-income strategies at First Empire Securities, discusses how credit unions can avoid "one dimensional" investments.

Scott Sullivan, CEO for the Nebraska Credit Union League, explains how to keep collaboration from being just a buzzword and put it into action.

Receiving Wide Coverage ...JPM's Woes Grow … Again: The hits just keep on coming over at JPMorgan Chase. The nation's biggest bank disclosed in a regulatory filing that the Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating its hiring practices in China. "Authorities suspect that JPMorgan routinely hired young associates who hailed from well-connected Chinese families that ultimately offered the bank business," explains the Times, which first reported on the filing. The bank told several news outlets it is fully cooperating with regulators regarding the investigation. The SEC is declining to comment. The FT notes that the investigation could "cause consternation" for more than just JPM. "In their rush to capitalize on China's economic growth, virtually all the big Wall Street and European financial institutions with operations in the country have habitually hired … the children of senior Chinese officials," the paper notes. Meanwhile, the Journal estimates that JPM's growing regulatory problems could cause the bank to "absorb $6.8 billion in future legal losses above its existing reserves" then drops this factoid: "The numbers put JPMorgan on pace to supplant Bank of America as the big lender with the most legal problems."

A recap of the informed opinions (and the discussions they generated) on BankThink this week.

The Federal Reserve Board announced plans to collect $440 million in fees from 70 companies for increased supervision by the agency.

Nowhere has the piecemeal approach to postcrisis regulation been more apparent than with the CFPB's Qualified Mortgage rules and its aggressive stance on the fair-lending doctrine of disparate impact.

During a hearing Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Richard Leon suggested that the Federal Reserve Board set a cap on swipe fees too high under the Durbin Amendment, a provision in the Dodd-Frank Act, and stated banks might be forced to rebate potentially billions of dollars to merchants in "overcharges."