Law and regulation

Regulators have bombarded mortgage servicers with a flurry of new regulations and government programs in the past year, heaping on tasks and costly reviews. Now they're asking to hear the mortgage companies' complaints.

"Confidence was so shattered that banks were holding vast unlent sums, and businesses did not want to invest in new capital even though interest rates were at abnormally low levels…The general loss in confidence was the main cause of the low demand, and thus the low level of employment."

Extending the law that provides unlimited deposit insurance on non-interest bearing demand deposits would send a signal that just maybe the industry is not fully healthy and still needs support.

In recent months at least 650 thrift institutions have experienced a change in supervisory agency from the Office of Thrift Supervision to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency as mandated by Dodd-Frank. Also, thrift holding companies now come under the supervision of the Federal Reserve Board.

A move to revise the Credit Finance Business Act and allow South Korea’s financial regulator to set the commission rates card firms collect from merchants has met with strong opposition.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development said Monday that it has charged Bank of America Corp. with discriminating against disabled home buyers by asking them for medical information and proof of federal disability income.

North Dakota Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem is warning residents of the state to be on alert for criminals posing as payday loan operators and debt collectors.

The Dime Savings Bank of Williamsburgh announced that it intends to convert from a federally chartered thrift supervised by the OCC to a state-chartered thrift to be supervised by New York State Department of Financial Services.

The amount the Michigan company ends up paying will depend on whether its financial footing improves.

The perfect metaphor for the housing crisis sits, ignominiously, off the coast of Italy. That lumbering hulk of a ship – the once Grand Concordia — is stuck, half sunk, going nowhere, and the prospects for the situation improving are problematic at best. Refloat? Scrap? Maritime experts are weighing the pros and cons, but I think there's general agreement about siphoning off the fuel before a possible leak turns pristine waters into a very toxic mess.

Two banks failed on Friday, with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. only finding a buyer for one of the fallen institutions.

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency is under pressure to let borrowers have the right to sue servicers even if they receive compensation under the foreclosure review process.

Flagstar Bancorp Friday agreed to pay up to $132.8 million to settle civil-fraud charges lodged by the Department of Justice that accused the bank of improperly approving loans for government insurance.

American Express Co., the largest credit-card issuer by spending, is facing an enforcement action by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and possibly the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau over late fees it charged some charge-card customers, the company said Friday in a regulatory filing.

WASHINGTON — The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. will report the industry's full 2011 earnings Tuesday in the agency's regular quarterly update.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. issued prompt corrective actions against five banks in January, telling them to either raise capital or be acquired by another institution.

As the Transaction Account Guarantee program is such an important issue to community banks, I read with interest Ms. Barbara Rehm's column titled "Rehm on TAG: Don't Extend it, End it." The piece omitted discussion of the reasons the TAG was created by the FDIC in the first place and why those reasons are still valid today.

The leadership of the American Bankers Association pushed attendees at this year's Conference for Community Bankers to stand united in public, while urging them to push lawmakers to sign onto a bill to address examination appeals.

Commerce National Bank & Trust in Winter Park, Fla., has entered into a consent order with the Officer of the Comptroller of the Currency that requires it to clean up its loan portfolio and bolster its capital levels.

Bank of America Corp. has stopped selling some residential mortgages to Fannie Mae, saying that it let its contract expire in part due to ongoing disputes over mortgage repurchase claims.