Dodd-Frank

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is weighing whether to vastly increase the data collected under the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act in an effort to better monitor trends and abuses in the market.

During a House Financial Services Committee hearing featuring top regulatory officials, lawmakers repeatedly returned to the question of whether the five agencies involved in writing the Volcker Rule can enforce it consistently across the various entities they oversee.

While it is undoubtedly possible to create standalone institutions that can weather almost any financial storm, the capital and liquidity levels of those institutions will seriously limit their usefulness as engines of economic growth.

The Senate is poised to vote on a massive, five-year farm bill this week that includes several provisions important for community bankers and agricultural lenders.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., said a financial services model for the U.S. Postal Service -- proposed in a recent inspector general's report -- should be considered in light of high costs facing the underserved.

Without naming names, the CFPB said in a report released Thursday that, based on its examinations, servicers made borrowers jump through hoops to qualify for loan modifications and were lax about maintaining accurate records.

Regulators are signing bilateral MOUs and advancing strategies meant to avoid ring-fencing, but some say more binding pacts should govern cross-border resolutions.

President Obama hit on several important issues for bankers in his annual address to Congress Tuesday night, including mortgage finance reform, though as expected financial services issues largely took a backseat to other national concerns, like unemployment and the minimum wage.

Richard Cordray, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's normally unflappable director, reacted angrily Tuesday to suggestions by lawmakers that he and his agency do not care about borrowers who purchase manufactured housing.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau issued a three-page advisory Monday in response to recent card and data breaches, encouraging consumers to monitor their accounts for unauthorized charges or debits.

A bipartisan group of senators are urging Treasury Secretary Jack Lew not to rely on a recent Office of Financial Research study as basis for labeling asset management firms as systemically risky.

More than five years after the financial crisis, President Obama could once again turn some attention to the Dodd-Frank Act and the housing market during his State of the Union address next week.

A new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau proposal would put large nonbank money transmitters on more equal footing with banks and credit unions required to follow federal remittance rules.

Mary Miller, Under Secretary for Domestic Finance, said regulators must standardize how institutions report the data meant to help officials gauge systemic risks.

WASHINGTON -- Rep. Scott Garrett, R-N.J., a senior member of the House Financial Services Committee, is preparing to unveil legislation designed to increase public awareness of the Federal Reserve Board's rule-writing process.

Several more banks have disclosed financial hits because they hold securities that regulators declined to exempt from the Volcker Rule. Many of the bankers are upset because they are taking impairment charges on performing securities.

Judges for an appeals court appeared sympathetic Friday to the Federal Reserve Board's defense of its rule capping interchange fees on debit cards, fueling hopes by bankers that the agency will beat back a legal challenge.

Regulators' attempt to carve out an exemption for small banks from a key part of the Volcker Rule satisfied most institutions that feared getting swallowed up in the Dodd-Frank Act provision, but left others still vulnerable to the regulation and facing significant losses.

House Republicans were sharply critical Wednesday of regulators' final Volcker Rule, warning that it adds an unnecessary and costly layer of regulation.

The American Bankers Association announced Wednesday that it will drop its request for emergency relief in pending litigation over the Volcker Rule, but declined to stop the suit entirely.