Law and regulation

Monitise PLC officially completed its acquisition of Clairmail Inc. on June 26, the mobile banking and payments providers announced.

Regions Financial is trying to make its products easier for customers to understand, in the latest example of a bank simplifying its disclosures.

The banking unit of Pinnacle Financial Partners (PNFP) in Nashville, Tenn., has filed an application to convert from a national charter to a state one to "simplify communications with regulatory authorities."

First Horizon National (FHN) in Memphis said Monday that it will take a $272 million charge in the second quarter primarily for mortgage repurchases from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

The Basel Committee on Banking Supervision is currently entertaining tougher capital rules for certain types of construction and commercial real estate loans. If the rules go through, they could ice small banks' plans for returning to profit growth.

Foreign banks are sending letters to U.S. residents who have accounts, requiring that these customers waive secrecy rights and pressuring them to report on the accounts to the IRS.

Thousands of pages will soon arrive in Washington in the first round of living wills for systemically important firms. Many observers say these initial drafts could shape future standards and determine the wills' effectiveness in ending "too big to fail."

The Treasury Department is auctioning off shares it owns in seven more community banks still left in the Troubled Asset Relief Program and at least five of the banks intend to bid on all or some of the shares themselves.

We'll know that the banking industry has returned to full health when we see a significant number of new charters. We're not there yet.

Christopher Dodd recently spoke in defense of the act with his name his name on it at a conference for accounting fraud examiners. Following the event the former senator discussed the compromises and concessions that were necessary to pass the bill, and everything he would have included given his druthers, in an interview with Accounting Today.

Looking back on last summer provides some perspective. What's worse: a $2 billion nick to one bank's profits, or a massive computational error leading to the unprecedented downgrade of the world's most powerful economic force?

Supporters of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau are dismissing a new lawsuit that seeks to abolish the agency as a political stunt, and even bank industry insiders who would like the case to succeed are privately calling it an uphill battle. But it may still have an impact on the CFPB's operations in a more indirect way.

Kearny Financial (KRNY) of Fairfield, N.J., has decided to skip its next quarterly dividend payment despite a proposal from the Federal Reserve Board that would prohibit thrift holding companies from missing dividend payments.

Bank of America (BAC) is the latest bank to announce that it will redeem its trust-preferred securities in advance of new capital requirements that will start being phased in at the beginning of 2013.

Banks are increasingly trying to hire, and talking about hiring, military veterans, hoping that giving jobs to war heroes will help repair the industry's reputation.

American Banker readers share their views on the most pressing banking topics of the week. As excerpted from the Comments sections of AmericanBanker.com articles.

Report finds that smaller credit spreads helped lower the exposure in the first quarter of the year, but the continuing risks from the European debt crisis have some traders interested in higher returns.

The conventional wisdom is that Dodd-Frank compliance expenses are a significant drag on bank budgets. Sounds obvious, right?

New York Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman announced agreements this week with two Western New York debt collectors, permanently barring one from the collection business and requiring the other one to pay $175,000 in penalties.

Bankers have been complaining that the signature financial bill would send their compliance-related expenses through the roof. So far, the numbers indicate otherwise.