Dodd-Frank

While many small banks are hoping Congress will grant regulatory relief this year, mutual institutions are seeking two specific changes they hope can bolster their struggling business.

Bank regulators rejected three foreign banking organizations' resolution plans — so-called "living wills" — that were submitted last year, finding "shortcomings" and ordering the institutions to make certain improvements when they resubmit their plans this year.

A loose coalition of regional banks pushing to change a key Dodd-Frank Act provision has launched a formal organization.

The CFPB wants to expand banks' data reporting requirements under the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act. But this would impose even greater costs upon local financial institutions that are already overburdened by regulation.

A U.S. District Court judge has dismissed a challenge to JPMorgan Chase's $13 billion settlement with the Justice Department.

Regulators pressed for more flexibility when it comes to stress tests, among other things, as lawmakers consider changes to the Dodd-Frank Act.

If successful, Provident Bank in Massachusetts and Cincinnati Federal in Ohio would become the first new mutual holding companies since 2011, giving some hope that the structure could make a comeback.

The House Financial Services Committee renewed its look at regulatory relief for small financial institutions Wednesday, pressing bankers and credit union representatives for details about their compliance burdens.

The controversial $50 billion-asset cutoff was one of a host of policy issues the Treasury secretary addressed before lawmakers on Tuesday.

A new book by the American Enterprise Institute's Peter Wallison reveals how a government push to lower credit standards brought about the housing crisis — and why a new effort to expand homeownership could inadvertently set the stage for a fresh disaster.

The smaller banks in the FDIC's deposit insurance fund are subsidizing the activities of the largest banks. A two-tiered approach would go a long way toward addressing moral hazard and the too big to fail problem.

A former chief financial officer at Cooperative Bank in Roslindale, Mass., has filed a whistle-blower lawsuit against the mutual thrift, alleging he was fired after complaining about conflicts and mismanagement.

Frank Hamlin, CEO of Canandaigua National, suggested in a recent letter to shareholders that N.Y. Attorney General Eric Schneiderman's cases against Financial Institutions Inc. and Evans Bancorp were politically motivated.

Informing banks about the details of stress-test requirements in advance would help mitigate financial institutions' unnecessary costs. And conducting the tests on a quarterly basis would ensure that banks are unable to game the system.

Two foreign-owned banks — Santander and Deutsche Bank — failed the Fed's stress test. Two other foreign banks that failed last year, HSBC and RBS Citizens, passed this year.

Citigroup Chief Executive Michael Corbat will still have a job tomorrow (and probably several days after that). The bank's capital distribution plan was approved by the Federal Reserve on Wednesday, undoubtedly to the delight of shareholders who were surprised by last year's rejection.

JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs were each forced to resubmit their capital plans in order to pass the Fed's CCAR stress test, while Bank of America was publicly faulted for weaknesses in its capital planning process. While some saw that as a bad sign, others contended the banks appear more comfortable in pushing the limits of the stress testing process.

Banks and other financial companies are engaging in disturbing new overdraft practices, violating fair lending laws related to mortgages and being too aggressive in how they collect student loan debt, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau said Wednesday.

Policymakers should stop assuming that homeownership is always better than renting and recognize the economic circumstances that young people will live with for the foreseeable future.

Small-business lending will be crucial to the future of the American economy. But community banks' ability to make loans to friends and neighbors they know depends in part on a supportive regulatory environment.