Law and regulation

The Treasury Department has appointed C. Wayne Crowell to the board of Intervest Bancshares (IBCA) in New York.

The Dodd-Frank QM rule will restrict the availability of credit, but it can be less invasive if the CFPB develops a model that weighs all relevant risk factors, not just a few measures of capacity to repay, writes BankThink's Risk Doctor columnist.

Top regulators at the Fed, SEC, OCC, FDIC, CFPB and NCUA are warning that a Senate bill pending in the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee would undermine agency rulemaking authority.

The nation's top home lender has been mailing letters and refund checks to nearly 10,000 borrowers acknowledging that they received Federal Housing Administration loans when they would have qualified for less-expensive conventional financing.

Agencies based in Washington were mostly closed in anticipation of the storm, but officials said where possible support for banks and examiners would be made available.

Comptroller of the Currency Tom Curry said the agency is ready to "take action" against banks that lower provisions solely to boost short-term profits.

Kelly S. King, the chairman and chief executive of BB&T (BBT), has been appointed to the Federal Advisory Council.

If U.S. regulators proceed with anything like the 2010 Basel III proposal on liquidity, important bank products such as brokered deposits may simply disappear.

Regulators took a slew of enforcement actions against banks last month in connection with consumer protection, capital adequacy and other matters.

The Pennsylvania Department of Banking and Securities closed the $483 million-asset NOVA Bank in Berwyn on Friday, but the FDIC was unable to find a buyer for the failed bank's operations.

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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.

Societe Generale, Royal Bank of Canada, and Bank of America are among nine additional banks subpoenaed in a multistate investigation of alleged manipulation of Libor, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Banks are calling on federal agencies to revamp and delay implementation of a package of proposals that will transform financial regulation.

TCF, the Wayzata, Minn., bank recorded a $20 million charge in response to new regulatory requirements for loans to homeowners who have been through bankruptcy. The directive has hurt profits at a slew of banks.

Just in time for the election, financial policy wonks without access to Facebook now have a resource for wasting precious work time. The election website for Reuters features an application letting you fill key economic positions in either an Obama or Romney administration.

Until regulators are made more independent of the bankers they supervise, all the lawsuits and campaign promises in the world won't fix the financial system, says Neil Barofsky, former special inspector general of Tarp.

Citigroup Inc. (C) was fined $2 million after a junior analyst improperly disclosed confidential information before Facebook Inc.'s initial public offering, Massachusetts' top financial watchdog said.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau seeks to oversee debt collectors, changes of leadership get close scrutiny, bankers band together to avoid the fiscal cliff.

The Dodd-Frank QM rule will restrict the availability of credit, but it can be less invasive if the CFPB develops a model that weighs all relevant risk factors, not just a few measures of capacity to repay.