Law and regulation

Right now, financial institutions are not required to know the identity of the living, breathing person behind accounts owned by legal entities. The beneficial ownership rules proposed by Fincen would help expose money launderers, tax evaders and criminals.

Encouraging the financial industry to explore faster payments is all well and good. Effectively directing it to do so, however, is beyond the Fed's authority.

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, who forced Wall Street's biggest banks to pay billions in fines for their roles in the subprime mortgage crisis, is pressing for action against executives at those firms, even as he prepares to leave his post.

Banks and industry groups worry that the Financial Stability Board's "total loss absorbing capacity" proposal could disrupt capital formation while reform advocates say the rules could be strengthened even further.

HSBC has spent billions of dollars in compliance and legal costs, but the damaging scandals keep coming. Renewed attention on the problems at its Swiss private bank could fuel the debate about whether banks this size are too big to manage.

Big banks have only grown larger and more complex since the financial crisis, and there is reason to doubt the efficacy of measures aimed at preventing the risk of another taxpayer bailout.

Bankers, technology CEOs and President Obama are throwing everything they have at countering the growing threat of cyber attacks, putting their faith in biometrics, tokenization and data sharing. But it's far from clear that it will be enough.

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Georgia state regulators on Friday closed the $272 million-asset Capitol City Bank & Trust Co., in Atlanta, the third institution to fail this year.

Athens Federal Community Bank has applied for a national bank charter as it broadens its focus beyond residential mortgage lending.

New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman has introduced a bill that would impose new regulations on employers that pay workers through payroll cards.

A recap of the informed opinions (and the discussions they generated) on BankThink this week.

Lenders are seeing higher demand for homes but are expecting only modest growth in sales this year due to the limited housing stock.

A recent research paper found that community banks' assets, along with market share in most types of commercial lending, have fallen since the Dodd-Frank Act was passed. The report is giving advocates of smaller institutions more data to rally around.

In a wide-ranging interview, the head of the Cleveland Fed talks about her support for a two-tiered regulatory system, the biggest threats facing the system, interest-rate risk, culture and cybersecurity.

A bank's culture cannot be chosen. Its values and goals can be. And an appropriate combination of values and goals then creates the environment to achieve a positive and lasting culture.

Gary Patton Hall Jr. hid underperforming and at-risk loans from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and the bank's loan committee, the Federal Bureau of Investigation said in its indictment Thursday.

The Federal Reserve Board on Thursday announced release dates for its 2015 stress test results.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren said community banks have continued to be profitable despite new rules under the Dodd-Frank Act while raising fresh warnings about unnecessary changes to the financial reform law in the guise of regulatory relief.

WASHINGTON — The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau took action Thursday against three mortgage companies that, authorities say, falsely implied affiliation with the U.S. government.