BankThink

This week is going to be another tough one for the Federal Reserve’s relations with Congress, as a second hearing in the House Financial Services Committee potentially gives air to members’ trepidation over more Fed power. Elsewhere, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency is expected to release new mortgage metrics. Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data, delayed these past two weeks, could finally emerge as well.

Have elections become even more bitter, nasty, chock full o'accusations and half-truths and spin? Or have elections from the earliest days always been partisan and acrimonious, and it's just the widespread access to media that has brought the rancor readily to our desktops, making it only seem worse.

First came the mortgages. Now come the credit cards. And the HELOCs and auto loans for that matter.

Like a lot of people today, I find myself wondering just how long it will take for the economy to fully recover from the difficulties of the past year. While there have been some glimmers of hope, I still feel some unease — not knowing what will happen in the next year, month, or even week.

Leaders from the G20 countries are gathering in Pittsburgh today to try to coordinate their regulatory reform efforts, but another push to restructure global financial governance is also underway: The Dutch government and the World Legal Forum in The Hague are exploring the idea of creating an international financial court.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner is appearing once again before the House Financial Services Committee to defend the Obama administration's proposals to reform the financial system.

Market analysts have finally figured out how to do what mortgage servicers had deemed impossible: They have begun to pinpoint defaulting borrowers who strategically walked away from their houses, as opposed to those who were forced out in foreclosure proceedings. Is it too soon to declare that this changes everything?

Just when it looked like the vitriol in the healthcare melee was going to completely overshadow any fireworks in the debate on regulatory restructuring, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce arrived with guns bursting. The Chamber recently launched a series of ads protesting the Obama administration’s proposed consumer financial products agency, claiming it would bear down on Your Local Baker or Butcher and prevent him from extending credit to customers. National Economic Council Director Larry Summers wasn’t far off the mark when he compared the Chamber’s campaign to the claim popular now among opponents of healthcare reform that the Obama administration is planning to set up “death panels.”

This week will be another in which Congress contemplates financial regulatory restructuring in earnest, with hearings in the House Financial Services, Agriculture and Small Business committees. Watch for new developments in Congress’ attitudes toward the Federal Reserve.

Since the advent of Check 21, check imaging solutions have continued to gain momentum among all financial institutions, especially as the Federal Reserve pares down its delivery system. As remote deposit capture for business takes hold in the marketplace, a new technology enters the space for consumers-consumer capture.