Law and regulation

WASHINGTON–A new House bill aims to ease the tax-reporting requirements for retailers that rely on card purchases, which could stave off a wave of confused phone calls from merchants to their processors, according to the bill’s supporters.

To suggest that MMFs exist in a hidden “shadow” world simply distorts reality.

The measure would also ban bonuses to executives at Fannie and Freddie, while requiring firms that sell information they gather on Capitol Hill to hedge funds to register as lobbyists.

Regulators say coordination is a high priority, but under Dodd-Frank institutions of varying sizes and charters will face different regimes.

Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner said the administration will release new details on a plan for GSE reform in the coming months, but said he doesn't expect legislation to advance this year.

The Senate approved an amendment to stop Fannie and Freddie from paying bonuses and a separate measure that would require members of Congress to disclose the terms of their mortgages.

Analysts and former regulators debate whether last year's decline in new regulatory orders means things are improving for the banking industry, or if regulators are simply running out of sick banks to flag.

Nearly one year after the Treasury Department outlined a broad strategy for housing finance reform, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner said Thursday the administration will finally outline more specific plans in the next few months.

Facebook's payments revenue is growing dramatically each year — and its digital currency could soon threaten banks as it moves into more traditional channels.

The Small Business Lending Fund is projected to generate an $80 million profit, rather than the $1.3 billion cost initially estimated, according to a Treasury Department report.

Bernanke pushed back against House Republican criticisms that the Fed had no business issuing an unsolicited white paper detailing ways to potentially fix the housing market.

The FDIC has fined Stuart Voigt, a former Vikings player, and wants to ban him from banking after accusing him of improper dealings as chairman of a Minnesota bank.

Ally Financial is "on par" with any top-tier financial company — as long as analysts ignore the massive mortgage problems that made the lender lose $250 million in the fourth quarter, CEO Michael Carpenter says.

Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke on Thursday issued yet another a stark warning to lawmakers: fix the rising deficit before it puts the economy at grave risk.

An operation that marketed prepaid calling cards to immigrants will pay $2.32 million as part of a settlement to resolve charges that they made false claims to consumers about the number of minutes of talk time the calling cards would deliver.

Spurred by the financial crisis and its impact on their constituents, state attorneys general appear to be carving out a new role as de facto bank regulators. This trend, an unexpected fall out of the financial crisis and the passage of Dodd-Frank, may not as yet be fully appreciated. However, it seems increasingly clear that state AGs will be important arbiters of the way banks do business on a going forward basis.

A new study analyzing data from 15 years of state bank examinations has sparked a debate whether state regulators are not as tough as their federal counterparts.

With all the twists and backroom turns, government officials’ quest for a settlement and restitution from banks and mortgage servicers is starting to resemble a 1960s screwball comedy.

Regulators raised objections Wednesday with a House bill that would set up an independent appeals process for banks.

First Data expects its Star PIN-debit network to benefit this year when the last measure of the Durbin amendment takes hold on April 1, requiring financial institutions with more than $10 billion in assets to have at least two processing networks on their debit cards.