Law and regulation

Financial markets remain highly complex webs subject to major systemic shocks we are ill-equipped to identify before our financial system melts down.

Visa Europe may receive an antitrust complaint from European Union regulators over credit card fees, the EU's competition commissioner said.

A regulatory settlement or a Senate hearing can remove a particular cloud enveloping an institution, but create deeper doubts than the ones it removes.

Sanford "Sandy" Weill, who ushered in the era of supermarket banks with the creation of Citigroup (C) before the financial crisis, said U.S. lenders should be broken up to protect taxpayers.

Banks will be forced to put more capital behind derivatives trades in a push by global regulators to protect market stability and reinforce clearinghouses.

Last week's enforcement order against Capital One "signaled the CFPB is shooting for higher settlement amounts, is more interested in providing a detailed account of what went wrong, and wants to specify exactly what institutions should do in similar situations," writes American Banker's Kevin Wack.

Bankers who want to cash out ahead of a potential hike in the capital gains tax next year need to act fast, M&A experts say.

The yield curve flattened and it showed in margins among the first wave of banks to post second quarter results. But a sizeable group used some remaining levers – like the retirement of trust-preferred securities – to buck the trend.

The CFPB director appeared Tuesday before the congressional panel most hostile to his agency, but the proceedings generally remained civil and respectful.

We know banks large and small are concerned about the compliance costs and other implications of Dodd-Frank. How about credit unions?

At a Senate hearing on ways to help borrowers, Tennessee Republican Bob Corker said debate over education costs should "look at the entire picture."

A bipartisan bill that would permit regulators to grant federal charters to nonbank consumer lenders is being met with fierce resistance — particularly from regulators themselves.

Black and Latino borrowers received government-backed loans insured by the Federal Housing Administration or guaranteed by the Department of Veterans Affairs significantly more often than white borrowers, raising concerns about redlining, a new study has found.

The Illinois company spent three years trying to keep its Kansas and Florida banks from failing. The company, which has other banks, is not off the hook yet because the FDIC could charge it for the cost of the failures.

SunTrust, Huntington, First Horizon and TCF would suffer the biggest drops in Tier 1 common equity under proposed guidelines, unless they change their mix of assets.

Wal-Mart and Target have vocally opposed the card networks' proposed multi-billion dollar interchange fee settlement, but even these giants may not have the influence to spike the agreement.

You should be able to move your money as fast as you can make it. But the banking system today works about as speedily as the Post Office.

Fed Gov. Sarah Bloom Raskin urged regulators to narrow a potential loophole in the Volcker Rule that would allow some banks to bypass the ban on proprietary trading.

Use eminent domain to refinance unaffordable mortgages, cut through the mire of servicers, home equity investors and trustees. Protect homeownership and communities while respecting everyone's property rights.

It was an insanely busy week in Washington last week, as the CFPB took its first enforcement action, regulators finally designated nonbank systemically important companies and Dodd-Frank turned two. Here were the stories you shouldn't miss: