Law and regulation

Rolling back unnecessarily burdensome and costly regulations is the only way to ensure credit unions’ survival. To that end, lawmakers should pass a bill that would give credit unions relief from annual privacy notice requirements and grant safe harbor qualified-mortgage status for certain loans held in their portfolios.

The new regulations are meant to close loopholes in an interest rate cap that applies to active-duty soldiers and sailors. But financial institutions won at least one important concession.

Porter Bancorp in Louisville, Ky., has agreed to pay $1.1 million to settle a lawsuit alleging mismanagement of a former client's employee stock ownership plan.

The Federal Reserve Board issued an enforcement action against one of the biggest banks in China on Tuesday, ordering its New York branch to undergo broad restructuring of its anti-money-laundering compliance program.

Citigroup is facing $770 million in charges after two federal regulators said the megabank engaged in deceptive marketing and unfair billing practices related to its credit card add-on products.

Citigroup is facing $770 million in charges after two federal regulators said the megabank engaged in deceptive marketing and unfair billing practices related to its credit card add-on products.

On the five-year anniversary of Dodd-Frank, it's time to increase accountability and transparency at the CFPB. Congress should start by passing a bill that would overhaul the agency's organizational structure from a single-director model to a bipartisan, five-person commission appointed by each incoming president.

Five years after the Dodd-Frank Act was signed into law by President Obama, it remains as controversial as when it was enacted. While partisans may debate whether the changes are good or bad, there is no doubt they’ve had a sizable impact. Following are the biggest ways the system has changed.

The Obama administration on Tuesday finalized new regulations designed to crack down on high-cost loans to members of the military.

If Congress fails to act swiftly, most lending supported by the SBA will shut down for much of the next two months. This would undermine recent strength in a vital component of the American economy.

WASHINGTON — Treasury Secretary Jack Lew said Monday that the Obama administration will continue to defend the Dodd-Frank Act amid Republican efforts to water down the law, even as one of its namesakes suggested changes to it may be necessary.

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.