Law and regulation

Alternative payments are taking hold at a brisk pace. Now a major bank lobbying group and payment company is crying foul.

Citigroup has agreed to refund $4.5 million to global markets customers who were charged excessive fees and did not receive appropriate rebates.

WASHINGTON – The Federal Housing Finance Agency on Wednesday officially increased the target for loans purchased by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac that benefit affordable housing, but the uptick is not satisfying housing advocates.

Citigroup will pay $15 million to resolve Securities and Exchange Commission claims that its Global Markets unit failed to enforce policies to prevent transactions that could lead to misuse of nonpublic information.

As the 2008 financial crisis fades into memory, it has become increasingly unlikely that any bankers or traders involved will see jail time. But while no individuals were ever charged with a crime, the feeling that the financial industry got away scot-free will affect the 2016 presidential race and beyond.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau said Springstone Financial, acquired last year by Lending Club, misled borrowers into thinking loans carried zero interest.

The Financial Stability Oversight Council has a mandate to designate nonbank financial companies as systemically important based on criteria established by Congress. Its designation decisions should not be predetermined by the actions of global regulators.

The Treasury Department announced Tuesday that members of the public will have an additional month to submit comments about the online marketplace lending industry.

A look at how Dodd-Frank has affected the banking industry, and what other forces are at play.

Promontory Financial Group on Tuesday agreed to a $15 million settlement, and a six-month ban from accepting certain new consulting work in New York, to resolve an investigation by the state's department of financial services into its consulting work at Standard Chartered Bank.

Bank of New York Mellon has agreed to pay $14.8 million to settle Securities and Exchange Commission allegations that it used its internship program to violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

ValueAct Capital Management, the activist fund run by Jeff Ubben, disclosed a new 1.1 percent stake in American Express Co.

Critics of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's data collection haven't bothered to learn the basic facts about the data the regulator collects before veering off into black helicopter paranoia.

New Supplemental Performance Metric should encourage lenders serve lower credit scores borrowers.

The Federal Trade Commission has closed its investigation of Morgan Stanley's massive data breach. It has identified the problem that allowed the breach to happen: access controls to a narrow set of reports were improperly configured.

The FDIC wants to enlist banks to help determine which customers are insured and uninsured, but some say the FDIC is passing what should be its responsibility on to the industry.

The Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas has named Robert Steven Kaplan, a Harvard Business School professor, as its new president and chief executive officer.

The SEC's new rule requiring companies to disclose the relationship between CEO pay and that of the median employee may be a headache for big banks. But smaller financial institutions should have an easier time calculating the pay ratios, and the numbers are unlikely to attract much scrutiny.

The $120 million-asset mutual thrift filed its application with federal regulators this month. Citizens expects the formation to be completed by the first quarter, Chief Executive Tommy Johnson said in an interview.

Indictments are still pending in the case of an alleged Bitcoin money laundering scheme involving a tiny low-income credit union in New Jersey.