Law and regulation

In a huge win for housing advocates and a setback for the banking industry, the Supreme Court on Thursday upheld the use of "disparate impact" in a Texas case alleging housing-related discrimination.

In their ongoing quest to undo the most burdensome provisions of the Dodd-Frank Act, bankers invite lawmakers to spend a day in their branches.

Enterprise risk management is an area banks are trying to master, and the appointment of a chief risk officer to oversee this effort has become common, even among community banks. We asked CROs and other experts for their perspectives on this evolving role, the skills needed to do the job well and their biggest worries.

Witnesses testifying on Capitol Hill said legislation requiring incorporating companies to state true owner information would combat launderers.

A senior civil rights official at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is poised to tell Congress Thursday that the agency willfully disregards the process for handling internal employee complaints of discrimination and has repeatedly retaliated against staff who spoke out.

Two groups representing small and mid-size lenders say new proposed state mortgage servicing standards for nonbanks will add an unnecessary layer of regulatory burden, especially for firms servicing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac loans.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's new mortgage integrated disclosure rules will now take effect Saturday, Oct. 3, two days later than the previously rescheduled Oct. 1 deadline.

Bankers and commercial real estate developers are protesting new restrictions on construction lending, arguing they are poised to hurt credit availability and drive loans into risky, unregulated sectors.

The growing popularity of impact investing has led to a raft of new disclosure rules. The problem is that using the SEC to monitor companies' CEO pay policies and use of "conflict minerals" decouples the government agency's authority from its area of jurisdiction.

Senate Democrats are urging regulators to investigate potential discrimination in how banks and other financial institutions handle and market foreclosed homes.

A number of class-action lawsuits allege that investment advisers breached fiduciary duty by failing to recommend the least expensive products. But both trust law and investment theory acknowledge that responsible advisers take other factors into consideration.

Bank of the Orient in San Francisco has received a federal cease-and-desist order because of shortcomings in its compliance with anti-money-laundering rules.

The case against Adrian Rubin offers a tour through lenders' efforts, dating back to the late 1990s, to avoid state-by-state interest-rate caps.

Just as U.S. regulators shy from labeling individual asset management firms as systemic, an international group of securities regulators is similarly abandoning a firm-by-firm approach.

New Jersey will soon have a new banking commissioner.

Risk-based premiums should apply to big banks as well as small ones. That's because the assessment would have an immediate impact on big banks' quarterly profits, thereby appropriately charging them for the competitive advantage and privilege afforded by their size.

A top official who handles employee discrimination complaints at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is among the "whistle-blower" testifying before Congress on Thursday.

Congress should avoid becoming so focused on the problems with big banks that they overlook the community lenders suffering from a lack of regulatory relief.

The powerful Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is helping to reshape mortgage and payday lending, but its attempts to curb abuses in auto lending have been largely stymied by the clout of car dealers and the fragmented nature of auto finance.

Regulators finalized a rule Monday requiring banks to escrow flood insurance premiums and fees for loans on real estate located in a flood zone.