Law and regulation

Three California local governments may use their eminent domain powers to seize mortgages and restructure them to help distressed borrowers stay in their homes — much to the dismay of investors who hold the mortgages.

A recent survey by Ernst & Young shows more progress by banks to address deficiencies in their risk management practices, but growing concern for Basel III and new liquidity rules.

Even if we could trust megabanks to behave, there may be too much at stake to let systemically risky institutions live by self-imposed principles rather than hard and fast rules.

Nine of the largest, most complex financial institutions recently submitted living wills, plans required by Dodd-Frank detailing how they could unwind themselves facing a failure, to regulators.

The biggest U.S. mortgage lenders, whose first-quarter earnings were buoyed by gains on home loan refinancings, are raking in more profits as record-low interest rates and government efforts prolong the boom.

A VIP program run by Countrywide benefited numerous members of Congress, a handful of Capitol Hill staffers and then-HUD Secretary Alphonso Jackson, according to a report from the House Oversight Committee.

There are legitimate reasons to want to wind down Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Unfortunately, we haven't stopped talking about the specious ones.

Preparing systems for the Single Euro Payments Area may be more complex and time-consuming than many European corporations and banks realize. To ease this complexity, SunGard is offering software to centralize payments management.

The two year anniversary of the signing of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act is approaching and many rules required by the legislation still remain unwritten, according to a report from the law firm Davis Polk.

Federal banking regulators repeatedly fell short in their efforts to alert foreclosed homeowners that they may be eligible for monetary relief, according to a new report from a government watchdog agency.

The Office of Financial Research is not yet fully operational. Critics on the Hill want to gut the agency. Its forthcoming annual report presents a chance to win over lawmakers.

The Federal Reserve Board terminated written agreements with bank companies in Minnesota and Oregon and entered into a new one with a Maryland company.

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency published its first Semiannual Risk Review, a report offering a rare distillation of what it sees as the greatest safety and soundness threats facing banks, including weaker underwriting standards and new, potentially dangerous, products.

David Hirschmann, the president and chief executive of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's Center for Capital Markets Competitiveness, has some suggestions for Richard Cordray. In a letter to the CFPB director he "cited concerns about the new 'abusive' standard that was added to the Dodd-Frank Act, along with the already statutory terms 'unfair and deceptive practices,'" writes American Banker’s Rob Blackwell.

While nine of the largest, most complex U.S. banks largely followed the same template in filing their "living wills," there were subtle but significant differences in their approach.

Federal Reserve officials spoke out twice in the past month to send a signal to money-market funds resisting tighter U.S. regulation. The message: New rules are coming, one way or another.

Still holding stakes in some 325 banks, the Treasury is expected to accept bigger discounts as it works to unwind the bailout-era program.

Dodd-Frank has had "crushing impact" on banks and businesses according report from the Georgia Public Policy Foundation and the Competitive Enterprise Institute.

Four New York thrifts — Dime Savings, CMS, NorthEast Community and Fairport Savings — received approval Monday to switch from federal to state charters, adding to a growing list of converts nationwide.

Neither the FSOC nor the OFR is up and running well enough to address systemic risk. The Systemic Risk Council, a new private-sector nonprofit group, will likely change that.