Law and regulation

President Obama announced Monday his intention to nominate Kathryn M. Dominguez, an economics and public policy professor University of Michigan, to fill the final remaining slot on the Federal Reserve Board.

What asset threshold? Community banks may not be required by law to conduct stress tests, but about one in three have been asked by their examiners to do so, according to a recent survey of banks.

Federal judges have dismissed two lawsuits that accused Wells Fargo of reverse-redlining in Los Angeles and Cook County, Ill., Reuters reported.

In one fell swoop, the Federal Reserve Board completed two of the most significant rules on its docket, completing a surcharge rule for the largest and most systemically risky U.S. banks and outlining the first capital rules for a nonbank systemically important financial institution.

As new foreign bank regulations push financial institutions to shed risk-weighted assets, companies like Barclays and RBS are reducing their roles in the mortgage-backed securities market. But reduced competition in this sector is bad for liquidity.

Regulators and Congress can take several key steps to ease community banks' burden, from implementing tiered regulation to requiring less frequent call reports. And they should also remember that banks are innocent until proven guilty.

In a surprise move, the Federal Reserve Board proposed significant changes to its stress testing regime, including dropping its Tier 1 Common Capital requirements and delay leverage and risk-based capital ratio requirements for banks with "advanced approaches" in risk-based modeling.

A recap of the informed opinions (and the discussions they generated) on BankThink this week, including ways to make megabanks pay for their “too big to fail” subsidy and how banks can help put an end to human trafficking.

A new proposal by the FDIC could further discourage the use of noncore deposits, including those facilitated by deposit brokers and listing services and even certain reciprocal instruments not subject to the brokered-fund penalty.

Financial monitoring is one of the most effective ways to identify human traffickers. That's why it's crucial that banks work closely with law enforcement officials to put a stop to this criminal activity.

Marlette Funding is set to announce Friday that it has raised $75 million from investors including a fund affiliated with the Invus Group, a private-equity firm, and Navient Corp. The money will mainly be used to keep a portion of the loans Marlette originates through its website, MyBestEgg.com.

American Banker readers share their views on the most pressing banking topics of the week. Comments are excerpted from reader response sections of AmericanBanker.com articles and from our social media platforms.

WASHINGTON — The efforts of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac shareholders to claw back the value of their investments by suing the U.S. Treasury have not elicited much support on Capitol Hill.

WASHINGTON — The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau released a monthly snapshot of its complaint database on Thursday, the first of what will be a series of monthly reports that dig deeper into the trove of data it collects.

Federal Reserve Board Chair Janet Yellen said Thursday that she is willing to reject any of the largest banks' resolution plans that regulators received earlier this month if they are not adequate, but in at least one respect they already appear to be improved.

The leak of documents from the surveillance software and "ethical hacking" firm Hacking Team revealed that some foreign banks were clients. Had any U.S. banks been on the list, the last two weeks would have been … interesting.

WASHINGTON — Steven Antonakes, the No. 2 official at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, is resigning from the agency, according to an internal agency memo obtained by American Banker.

House Financial Services Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling is planning to push legislation that would rein in the Federal Reserve Board.

The Treasury Department launched an inquiry into the marketplace lending industry on Thursday, seeking information on its business models, customers and whether such firms should be forced to keep some "skin in the game."

Final guidelines for dealing with failing institutions from the international Basel Committee include direct capital injections — something the Dodd-Frank Act tried to end in the U.S. — as a last-ditch option.