Law and regulation

A federal district court handed the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau a major victory this week by ruling that the online loan servicer CashCall engaged in unfair, deceptive and abusive practices by using a "tribal model" to collect on loans in states with usury caps.

Big banks have less than a month to fix their resolution plans – or potentially face severe regulatory consequences.

WASHINGTON — Kansas City Federal Reserve Board President Esther George and Richmond Fed President Jeffrey Lacker will testify before a House panel on Wednesday.

The Mortgage Bankers Association has long been a staunch defender of the mortgage interest deduction. But the group's president and CEO now says he's open to Congress reducing, or even eliminating, the tax break.

With even community banks getting hit by ransomware attacks, there's a long list of cybersecurity practices that bankers can expect their supervisors to scrutinize during upcoming exams.

The suggestion that any area has too many local institutions dismisses the importance of community banks and overlooks the dangerous effects of consolidation.

Approximately 37 million adults in the United States — a number roughly equivalent to the population of California — do not have a checking account. Some of those individuals have never relied on traditional banking.

The largest U.S. banks are starting to question whether the advanced approaches modeling program embedded in the Basel accords is still valuable in a world where their capital levels are increasingly dictated by the annual stress tests and a supplementary leverage ratio.

The National Association of Realtors is urging policymakers to implement reforms meant to qualify more condominium buyers for Federal Housing Administration loans.

Plenty of banks have ended their federal loss-share deals early, but despite the incentives to wind them down, plenty more still have these crisis-era arrangements in place. It may be due to varying deadlines, mistakes calculating loan values or worries that they still might need the coverage for home equity lines.

Industry fears about the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's "UDAAP" authority recall steps Congress took in the '70s to rein in the Federal Trade Commission.

The Financial Stability Board said Wednesday in its annual report to the G-20 that progress is being made in implementing post-crisis financial reforms, but that implementation of specific initiatives remains uneven across industrialized nations.

The growth in loan demand and the industry's interest-related income has come in spite of continued pressures on bank profitability.

A longtime advocate for African-American-owned financial institutions argues that regulators should be taking more forceful action to keep them alive.

Banks and regulators both deserve credit for how they have navigated the post-crisis period, but how regulators continue to implement rules — and how banks continue to deal with this environment — will determine if this is a turning point for finance or the prelude to another round of pain.

U.S. banking earnings rose 1.4% in the second quarter from a year earlier to $43.6 billion driven largely by interest-related income while the Deposit Insurance Fund hit a key trigger that will affect industry premiums.

Banks need more specific guidance that clarifies requirements around vendor contracts, risk assessments, data management and other issues.

WASHINGTON — Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., sent a letter to federal regulators Monday requesting an analysis of bank trading data that is being collected as part of the Volcker Rule.

Kansas City Federal Reserve Bank President Esther George is best known nationally as a critic of the Fed's monetary policy, but in a wide-ranging interview she talks about Dodd-Frank, bank capitalization and the challenges facing community banking, in addition to interest rates.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. is set to release its quarterly update on the industry's health on Aug. 30. The second-quarter Quarterly Banking Profile will indicate whether banks have rebounded from their slight slump in the first quarter.