Law and regulation

Consumer advocates and financial services industry officials clashed Thursday over whether banks and insurers are getting paid fairly in the force-placed insurance market.

The Federal Reserve Board has terminated a written agreement with Coastal Financial that required the Everett, Wash., company to improve asset quality and risk management.

Google has changed the rules about how issuers get into its mobile wallet, and American Express is the first to vocally and vehemently oppose Google's new setup. The outcome of this dispute could decide who controls transaction data in mobile payments.

The agency used a cross-guaranty liability agreement to receive 85% of the proceeds from a Kansas Bank's sale to Arvest Bank in Arkansas. The deal is notable to companies with multiple banks, particularly those that are undercapitalized.

The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission may propose allowing swaps between a financial company's affiliates to be exempt from rules designed to reduce risk in the market, three people briefed on the matter said.

The judge overseeing the Visa/MasterCard swipe fee dispute will not approve the settlement until the second half of 2013. In the interim, this deal must get through numerous hurdles.

Southwest Bancorp (OKSB) in Stillwater, Okla., has repurchased all of the $70 million in preferred securities it sold to the Treasury Department under the Troubled Asset Relief Program.

The agency is desperately trying to avoid a bailout this year by settling disputes with major banks for cash, selling severely delinquent loans and raising insurance premiums for new borrowers.

Standard Chartered CEO Peter Sands hit back at a New York regulator's claims the bank broke U.S. sanctions, and said he saw "no grounds" for revoking the lender's license.

Jeffrey Kutler, editor-in-chief of Risk Professional magazine, isn’t surprised that bankers have balked at new regulation. But if there’s still debate about whether or not the Volcker Rule would have prevented JPMorgan's trading losses in the London office “what does that imply about the overall quality of the reform effort?” he asks.

A veteran who served in Afghanistan has filed a class-action lawsuit alleging Bank of America threatened to foreclose on his home and violated the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act.

Jeff Gerhart, the chairman and CEO of Nebraska's Bank of Newman Grove, is trying to help farmers with drought issues while also tackling concerns over Basel III rules and implementation for the Independent Community Bankers of America.

Bank lobbying groups have been pushing for an extension of the Transaction Account Guarantee program that would continue to make FDIC coverage for all transaction accounts mandatory. "But prior to Dodd-Frank, the original TAG — which regulators created in 2008 to strengthen liquidity — was voluntary and charged participants extra fees to opt in,” writes American Banker’s Joe Adler.

There is a growing debate over how much detail a bank should have to disclose to regulators about the money it sets aside to cover losses stemming from lawsuits.

Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., showed further signs he could be a 'nay' if Congress voted on extending the Transaction Account Guarantee program.

Campus card provider Higher One, along with The Bancorp Bank, its former bank partner, have settled a lawsuit with the FDIC stemming from several "alleged unfair and deceptive practices."

Bowing to pressure from community bankers, regulators extended the comment period on a set of proposals that will lift banks' minimum capital requirement to 7%.

"The kind of problems we're trying to address deal with clarity of the market — know before you owe — right from the very application stage," said Richard Cordray, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau director, in a recent interview with the New York Times about the two new mortgage forms the agency proposed in July.

Sens. David Vitter and Sherrod Brown are pressuring bank regulators to impose a higher capital surcharge for the largest U.S. banks.

Standard Chartered PLC might be asked to pay as much as $700 million to resolve money-laundering allegations filed by New York's banking superintendent after his department grew impatient with inaction by federal regulators, a person familiar with the case said.