Law and regulation

American Banker challenged the enforcement record of the FHA under the leadership of former commissioner David Stevens. During this period the program took important steps to reduce its risk.

Bank regulators have long kept state officials at arm's length, but the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is forging a close relationship with state attorneys general to enforce consumer banking laws.

A top Federal Reserve official on Friday downplayed the idea that the central bank was overly concerned about a new banking crisis, adding that the Fed was constantly monitoring institutions in both Europe and the U.S.

Once a fairly obscure self regulatory organization, the National Futures Association will likely soon be charged with overseeing the swaps market. How much responsibility the NFA takes on will be determined by how cash-strapped the Commodity Futures Trading Commission is.

One of the vital lessons learned from our ongoing financial crisis is the difficulty in measuring the potential impacts of a large, cross-border bank failure. Variance in supervisory processes, regulatory and firm readiness, bankruptcy laws, resolution regimes, policy responses, and official sector coordination mechanisms exposed a vacuum of information necessary to reduce the amplification of stress. These gaps impose enormous un-funded costs to the system.

In a rare Thursday failure, regulators shut a small Pennsylvania bank that serves the Orthodox Jewish community.

American International Group paid back another $2.15 billion of the $180 billion in government assistance it received during the financial crisis, the Treasury Department said Thursday.

Traditionally, objections to a merger deal are primarily fought over Community Reinvestment Act and consumer protection concerns. But the Massachusetts Democrat raised a new concern by citing fears on the size of the combined bank.

Elizabeth Warren filed papers Thursday to establish an exploratory committee, which will allow her to raise money for a potential Senate campaign.

The banking crisis in Georgia has spread to the state capital, as several lawmakers, including the governor, have personal ties to some of the state’s failed banks.

In theory, nearly everyone thought it was a good idea to require issuers of mortgage securities to hold onto some of the risk. But in creating an exemption to those rules, lawmakers have virtually guaranteed it won't happen. The inside story of how it happened.

WASHINGTON — Lending to small businesses in the U.S. declined last year as the economy struggled to recover from recession and access to credit only started to show signs of improvement, regulators said Thursday.

Federal regulators are intensifying their scrutiny of the U.S. arms of European banks amid concerns about those institutions' abilities to fund themselves, according to people familiar with the matter.

U.S. Representative Barney Frank, the senior Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee, asked the Federal Reserve to extend its examination of Capital One Financial Corp.'s acquisition of ING Direct USA.

Jeff Gerrish, a lawyer in Memphis who spends a lot of his time advocating on behalf of community banks to federal regulators, sees a thawing in banker-regulator relations, but says it is one born of fatigue rather than enlightenment.

Wells Fargo & Co. is testing a monthly fee with some customers to offset revenue losses it expects on debit card payments. It said earlier this year that it would make changes because of the Fed's decision to cap interchange rates.

Secure Vault Payments, which lets consumers spend at online merchants without disclosing their bank account details, is expanding into more financial institutions through a deal with the vendor Jwaala.

Wells Fargo & Co. likely is about to experience a flood of customer complaints as it starts to experiment with debit card fees to offset revenue losses it expects from the Federal Reserve Board’s interchange-rate cut, observes one analyst.

Last week, the Obama administration, under the leadership of FHFA, HUD and Treasury, and with the support of the Federal Reserve, announced a bold new plan to accomplish what its unsuccessful Hamp program was created to do.

Are you pushing back when you think examiners go too far? How's that working? One Ohio banker tried it, and instead of retribution he got relief.