Law and regulation

Obama's plan to pay for expanded refis turns heads, but similar proposals for bank fee have fallen flat before.

Financial firms have plenty of grips about the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau but appear to be withholding legal challenges until the new agency takes specific actions they find objectionable.

Washington Mutual Inc. Wednesday persuaded a bankruptcy judge to consider wiping the slate clean of allegations that major hedge funds engaged in insider trading during the $7 billion bankruptcy.

The central bank has held the federal funds rate near zero for over three years and intends to keep it there. Negative consequences are inevitable and policymakers' ability to manage them far from certain.

The Treasury Department said Wednesday it has completed the sale of pools of securities backed by small business loans, marking the end of another piece of the Troubled Asset Relief Program.

Speech includes plan to remove "red tape" for borrowers, and efforts to investigate those responsible for financial crisis.

GOP legislators raise issues surrounding recess appointment but hearing remains cordial.

Data published this month provides support for criticism of the small business lending program as a backdoor exit from Tarp for small banks. Institutions that used SBLF capital to refinance bailout infusions increased such loans at far lower rates than peers.

Corker blasts the effects of the trading ban on the private market, noting that the government exempted its own bonds.

Alex Pollock's "Let's Put Checks and Balances on CFPB" is spot on describing the enormous danger of a politically unchecked CFPB lording over consumer financial services, and what animates its champions. They believe the financial services industry is rapacious and untrustworthy, a great many of their countrymen are not fully competent to make their own ("the right") choices selecting consumer financial products, and unconstrained regulatory mandarins produce better outcomes than lightly regulated markets.

Walsh sees need for swaps rules, but warns against overlooking the benefits of derivatives to the industry.

The former Tarp special inspector general says the Obama administration has let fears of a political backlash waylay programs that designed to aid the mortgage market and homeowners.

Arkansas Attorney General Dustin McDaniel filed a consumer protection lawsuit Monday against a Missouri man and two companies that control six Internet payday loan Web sites offering loans to consumers at interest rates of more than 600%.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) have signed a deal to coordinate consumer protection efforts and help avoid duplicating federal law enforcement and regulatory efforts.

Tom Miller's statement Monday came amid growing speculation that an agreement is close.

WASHINGTON — The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the Federal Trade Commission said Monday they have signed an agreement to coordinate their rulemaking and enforcement activities.

The speech comes as a potential mortgage settlement approaches, and the new consumer bureau emerges as a top campaign issue.

The big banks' mortgage woes keep piling up, in a backlog that is likely to drag down their profits — and a broader housing recovery — for the foreseeable future.

Industry observers agree that the bureau's authority will be challenged in court, but it's unclear when and where the lawsuit will come from.

"Rich" Cordray (as his sidekick Raj Date calls him) is being unfairly stigmatized by press references to him as "5-time Jeopardy winner." As if that were his greatest qualification!