Law and regulation

Jeremy Stein, a professor of economics at Harvard University, became the seventh governor to join the Federal Reserve Board, the central bank said Wednesday.

Wilshire State Bank in Los Angeles has been released from an enforcement order that required it to boost its capital ratios and reduce its level of problem loans.

Prepaid companies have lowered their card fees over the past few years, but now regulators may give the still-fractured industry another push towards simpler prices.

Politicians and regulators want taxpayers to believe two things: first, that financial crisis had multiple complex causes mostly related to excessive risk-taking, conflicts of interest and deregulation — a view unconvincingly supported by the exculpatory 662 page summary Report of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission; second, that public regulation is a sisyphean task requiring the 2313 page Dodd-Frank Act. This diagnosis and prescription are both wrong.

The House Financial Services Committee is set to vote on a bill that would benefit just one institutions: Emigrant Bank, whose CEO Howard Milstein has made contributions to many of the bill's co-sponsors. And people wonder why Americans are cynical about politicians.

Prepaid cardholders are certain to enjoy more federal protection soon. But it remains open to debate how much those protections should resemble those for conventional bank accounts.

JPMorgan's trading loss should send shudders down the spine of shareholders, management and regulators. The once paragon of risk management has turned into a case study of what not to do.

The Federal Reserve Board has given a Premier Bank in Denver 90 days to become adequately capitalized or sell itself.

The Supreme Court affirmed Tuesday the right of lenders to use their debt as currency in bankruptcy auctions in a unanimous decision sure to reverberate through the corporate-restructuring community.

Several lawmakers pushing a bill that would assist only one institution - Emigrant Bank of New York - have received campaign contributions from its top executive, Howard Milstein.

The growing challenges that bankers face amid a fast-changing technological and regulatory landscape were the focus of CEB TowerGroup's annual conference in Boston last week.

There are at least three ways to break a bank. Give him a little more time and Jamie Dimon may demonstrate all three of them.

The Mortgage Bankers Association raised its 2012 forecast for residential originations on Thursday, citing low interest rates that have sparked a massive increase in refinance activity.

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency has replaced an order between North American Savings Bank and the Office of Thrift Supervision with one of its own.

Some lawmakers are seething at the huge pay package handed out to a former CEO of Liberty Mutual Insurance. Their response has been to introduce new proposals on pay for mutual insurers, which could eventually apply to other financial institutions.

Banks are benefitting from a surge in second-quarter loan growth, driven almost exclusively by a jump in home mortgage lending.

Lafayette, La., and Washington are over 1,000 miles apart, but Rusty Cloutier, the founder and chief executive of MidSouth Bancorp, keeps the nation's capital top of mind.

JPMorgan trades spark debate on New York Fed structure; Richard Fisher's thoughts on battling TBTF; the CFPB turns to prepaid cards and nonbanks; Barbara Rehm tells the OCC to speak up; FDIC report is inconclusive on fate of lending.

Greg Gonzales, the commissioner of the Tennessee Financial Institutions Department, is the new chairman of the Conference of State Bank Supervisors.