Law and regulation

WASHINGTON — Without a permanent director in place, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau gave fair warning Tuesday it plans to start monitoring the industry's largest banks for consumer abuses in just over a week.

In recent weeks we have been treated to several regulatory observations and preliminary decisions about the appropriate level of bank capital. A few comments have come from U. S. bank regulators. A major recent pronouncement came from the Bank for International Settlements, more commonly known by the name of the Swiss city where the bank is located — Basel.

The largest bank holding company in the U.S. is shooting for only 7% of Basel III Tier 1 common equity. Come again?

While other regulators busily check off implementation goals set by last year's financial reform law, the new body charged with limiting threats to the financial system is getting lost in the shuffle.

WASHINGTON - The Federal Reserve Board Tuesday published a list of which banks must comply with the central bank's cap on debit-card swipe fees, as well as a list of those exempt from the cap (see list).

The Federal Reserve Board Tuesday published a list of which banks must comply with the central bank's cap on debit-card swipe fees, as well as a list of those exempt from the cap.

Guardian Analytics Inc. plans to launch an outsourced fraud-prevention service on July 13 that will help financial institutions meet new Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council guidelines released June 29.

A daylong meeting Tuesday of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.'s advisory committee on its new resolution powers — with an impressive list of participants led by former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker — produced its share of one-liners.

Reps. Barney Frank and Ron Paul do not agree on much when it comes to banking, but when it comes to pot they're in lockstep. The two House Financial Services Committee members from opposite ends of the ideological spectrum introduced a bill last week that would remove marijuana from the list of controlled substances and give the states power over the issue, according to the Associated Press.

Rep. Ron Paul lobbed a new accusation at the Federal Reserve last week by suggesting it was "hiding" some of the country's gold reserves.

A House Financial Services subcommittee hearing Wednesday will explore whether recent changes in loan-origination rules will hurt consumers' chances of getting a mortgage.

A federal judge Monday deferred a final decision on whether to approve a class-action settlement that would resolve a lawsuit over Encore Capital Group Inc.'s collection tactics.

Even as he favored a broader exemption from risk retention than currently proposed, Rep. Barney Frank said Monday regulators should not undermine skin-in-the-game rules by turning the exception into the rule.

While some bankers are secretly gleeful the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau does not yet have a director, they are the ones likely to pay a heavy price as a result.

The first three failures of the quarter — two in Colorado, one in Illinois — late Friday cost the Deposit Insurance Fund an estimated $590 million and brought the year's toll to 51.

David Wilcox was named director of the Federal Reserve Board's division of research and statistics. He will begin Oct. 1.

After months of complaints about overzealous examiners, frustrated bankers took it a step further by pressing a House panel to pass legislation forcing regulators to be more lenient.

Bair will join the Pew Charitable Trusts as a senior advisor starting Sept. 7. Meanwhile, Martin Gruenberg, the FDIC's vice chairman under Bair, was set to assume the position of acting chairman at the close of business Friday.

The Federal Reserve Board has given the troubled Commonwealth Bankshares Inc. in Norfolk, Va., until the end of July to either raise fresh capital or find a buyer.

In a move that seems to parallel U.S. policies, a consortium of top French banks has agreed to cut debit card interchange rates inside the nation's borders by as much as 36% in response to a price-fixing investigation by a government agency.