Law and regulation

There's more confusion in the Obama administration's policy response to the foreclosure crisis than an Abbott and Costello routine. Now the Fed steps up to the plate.

A payment processor and two of its principals are banned from using a new payment method to process electronic payments under a settlement with the Federal Trade Commission. The settlement resolves charges that they debited consumers' bank accounts without their consent.

One day after his appointment as the director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Richard Cordray sent a clear signal that he intends to move aggressively to enforce the agency's expanded authority.

Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Director Richard Cordray said Thursday that he has appointed Raj Date as the agency's first deputy director.

Morgan Stanley senior economist Vincent Reinhart is predicting that the rebounding economy will sputter again in the first of this year and that the Federal Reserve will need to jump start it with another round of "quantitative easing."

A compliance checklist for CEOs? That almost sounds like an oxymoron. Traditionally, bank CEOs did not give much thought to regulatory compliance unless something went wrong. However, as the regulatory environment continues to be enforcement-focused, bank CEOs must scan not only the economic landscape, but the regulatory one as well.

The White House and congressional Republicans traded barbs Thursday over the recess appointment of Richard Cordray at the CFPB.

Mortgage securitization blew up the home price bubble and detonated the financial crisis. How?

Despite new threats of legal challenges or hopes for structural changes, this agency cannot be wished away. But banks can still influence the size and nature of the role the CFPB will play.

Richard Cordray, the bureau's first director, said Thursday that the CFPB will begin exercising its new authority to regulate nonbanks starting today, despite doubts from the industry about its authority.

John Delaney, the executive chairman of CapitalSource in Bethesda, Md., is taking a leave of absence from the commercial finance company he founded to run for a seat in Congress.

President Obama on Dec. 4 bypassed intransigent Republican senators and named former Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray as a recess appointee to direct the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, allowing the new agency to begin its work in earnest.

Although doing so carries legal risks for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, President Barack Obama's decision to recess appoint Richard Cordray to head the new agency was all about politics.

WASHINGTON — While all eyes were on the recess appointment of its first director Wednesday, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau quietly released guidance that directs supervised banks to turn over any and all information it requests.

When President Obama installed Richard Cordray as director of the CFPB through a recess appointment Wednesday, he set the stage for a legal showdown over the bureau's authority that could take years to resolve.

Presidential elections historically turn on the condition of the economy, and economic recovery has historically relied on a housing market recovery.

Although doing so carries legal risks for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, President Barack Obama's decision to recess appoint Richard Cordray to head the new agency was all about politics.

Howard Bluver's prior stints at the SEC and the OTS should prove helpful to Suffolk Bancorp as it looks to exit a formal agreement with the OCC.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. has ordered seven ailing community banks to raise fresh capital and directed three others with elevated loan losses to submit written plans for raising capital should credit quality weaken further.

President Obama's decision to call an end-around and avoid opposition to his consumer bureau director runs a serious risk of backfiring.