Law and regulation

GOP lawmakers and witnesses at a Senate Banking Committee hearing pointedly criticized the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau on Tuesday, setting the stage for a likely contentious hearing with the agency's director later in the week.

In an interview, FDIC Chairman Martin Gruenberg said the agency will work with banking groups, state commissioners and others to help foster the growth of new banking charters.

Donald Trump proposed to block billions of dollars in payments immigrants send back to Mexico if the government there refuses to pay for a border wall, in a potentially devastating move for Mexico's economy.

The United Kingdom's potential departure from the European Union has implications not just for British banks but for large interconnected financial institutions based here as well.

The U.S. Supreme Court's decision last week not to review a mortgage-backed securities lawsuit renewed interest in a long-brewing legal conflict over the mandate of the Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery, and Enforcement Act.

Donald Trump proposed to block billions of dollars in payments immigrants send back to Mexico if the government there refuses to pay for a border wall, in a potentially devastating move for Mexico's economy.

Delaware, whose business-friendly laws have lured more than half the country's publicly traded corporations and more than 60% of the Fortune 500 to incorporate in the state, is now vying to become a hub for blockchain technology.

Two appeals court judges raised constitutional questions Monday about the structure of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in its case against PHH Corp.

In a forum at the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis aimed at examining progress made in ending the era of Too Big to Fail banks, academics engaged widely differing views on the nature of bank risk and how far regulators have come in addressing them since the crisis.

A trove of leaked documents casts HSBC Holdings Plc into a harsh light, as a consortium of investigative journalists said it found the bank was among the most active in registering shell companies that move money around the world on behalf of rich and politically connected clients.

The Supreme Court said Monday it would not hear an appeal from Wells Fargo to overturn a $203 million verdict against the bank regarding overdraft fees.

The agency's insurance-rate cut could spur the rehab of thousands of affordable units, but it's far from a total solution, housing advocates say.

Pew Charitable Trusts argues that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau needs to impose new rules on checking account overdraft policies. Does an analysis of CFPB's complaint database support this conclusion? Haberfeld's Achim Griesel says no.

Rather than look at the hard problem of restructuring the banking system, critics of the largest institutions should focus on the more immediate issues pertaining to extremely high capital requirements, which may hamper economic activity.

Debt collection, credit reporting and mortgages topped the list of complaints to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau last year, while complaints about prepaid cards and consumers loans soared, the agency said Friday.

HSBC hasn't adhered to terms outlined in a U.S. deferred-prosecution agreement requiring compliance measures to detect and prevent violations of money-laundering and sanctions laws, an external monitor said.

The Federal Reserve has given final approval to a rule that will let banks include investment-grade municipal bonds among the assets they use to meet regulatory requirements to ensure they have sufficient liquidity to weather a crisis.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has amassed more than $300 million in so-called "unobligated balances" in its civil penalty fund, driven by a bumper crop of penalties against financial institutions in the past year. Some are questioning why the balances remain so large, year after year.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission's proposal to obtain trader source code sets a dangerous precedent of regulators impinging on firms' constitutional protection from search and seizure.

Global regulators are moving toward a new way of calculating leverage ratios that could ease capital requirements for some banks, especially in the U.S.