Law and regulation

Regulators have ordered the banking unit of AB&T Financial Corp. in Gastonia, N.C., to improve its asset quality and evaluate its allowance for loan losses.

Two leading Democrats raises doubts over acting Acting Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Ed DeMarco's refusal to allow principal reductions for loans backed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

The simmering battle between banks and credit unions is heating up again, as credit unions revive their push in Congress to allow their industry to make more small business loans.

Capital One Financial Corp.'s agreement to buy ING Direct USA is on track to close this quarter even though the Federal Reserve Board delayed consideration Wednesday, Chairman and Chief Executive Richard Fairbank said.

Credit unions are an aggressive bunch. As if their heavy-handed push to expand into prohibited business lending wasn't enough, it now seems they are adding on another power grab to increase their ability to raise supplemental capital and support investors.

Failure has been the most common way out of enforcement actions in the current cycle, but outcomes may be improving.

Two months after stepping down as Minnesota's top banking regulator, Kevin Murphy has found a new job.

Rather than try to make money market funds safer, David Merkel essentially wants everyone to recognize and admit and deal with the reality that they aren’t safe.

The Federal Reserve Board on Wednesday unexpectedly postponed its meeting to discuss Capital One Financial Corp.'s $9 billion deal for ING Direct USA until next week.

Investors in Washington Mutual Inc.'s trust-preferred securities and die-hard litigants pursuing cases stemming from the largest collapse in U.S. banking history are readying for a last-ditch fight against the company's $7 billion Chapter 11 plan.

Lakeland Bancorp Inc. in Oak Ridge, N.J., has paid off its remaining debt to Troubled Asset Relief Program.

Democrats and Republicans said Wednesday they would support a bill to ensure that certain information shared with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau during exams is protected by attorney-client privilege.

Four defendants in an allegedly phony debt-relief services operation have settled Federal Trade Commission charges.

In an improving economy, many of the policies and procedures that were imposed on banks in 2008 have become counterproductive, and are hurting rather than helping the industry.

The U.S. Treasury Department and the Internal Revenue Service are providing further guidance that would make it easier for overseas banks to comply with a tax withholding requirement for some of their U.S. clients.

Mortgage lender PHH has been scrambling to reassure investors of its funding and cash positions in the wake of an S&P downgrade and the departure of its former CEO, Jerome Selitto.

Moments before he was scheduled to make a statement on the mortgage servicing settlement Tuesday night, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman postponed the conference call indefinitely.

Bankers are up in arms over the fact that a Congressional oversight has raised doubts about whether documents submitted to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau will retain attorney-client privilege.

President Obama's nomination of a Republican to the board of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. is fueling optimism that there may yet be a way for the Senate to confirm several pending financial nominees.

The Federal Reserve Board has ordered bank holding companies in Iowa, Wisconsin and South Carolina to use whatever resources are available to them to nurse their ailing bank subsidiaries back to health.