Law and regulation

WASHINGTON — A new analysis by the American Action Forum examines the cumulative costs and paperwork burdens of the Dodd-Frank Act roughly four years after the financial reform law's passage.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. proposed several assessment-pricing changes to correspond with the Basel III regime, including altering how highly complex banks report counterparty risk.

At a congressional hearing Tuesday, partisan lawmakers gave wildly divergent interpretations of the payment system crackdown.

The Fed Chair tells lawmakers she's "very positive on the idea of having a community banker appointed to the Board," but against requiring it by legislation.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. has proposed tailoring its system for pricing banks' insurance premiums to correspond with new Basel capital requirements.

"The real question for me is should we be in the FHA business at all," the CEO says.

The FDIC, OCC and Federal Reserve all plan to testify Tuesday that banks, not their regulators, are ultimately responsible for deciding who is an appropriate customer.

Federal and state authorities on Monday sought to rein in three companies accused of exploiting consumers struggling to pay off their debts.

The Justice Department's $7 billion deal with Citigroup is likely not the last big government maneuver to penalize banks for faulty mortgage-related practices leading to the financial crisis.

For months, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau floated a contract giving it control over the content of bank customers' complaints submitted online to the agency. It scrapped the plan after industry objections.

The alternative payments provider Dwolla insists that regulating Internet traffic will hurt startups, and it is among a group of companies that will argue this point before the Federal Communications Commission on July 15.

A recent report from the Center for Responsible Lending finds that debt settlement companies frequently fail to settle the bulk of their clients’ debts, leaving them in even weaker financial positions.

Two men who said they ran a payday loan brokerage in Tampa, Fla., have agreed to settle Federal Trade Commission charges that they stole hundreds of thousands of dollars from consumers' bank accounts.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau says brokers will have to comply with compensation limits even if they are funding loans via a warehouse line of credit.

Last year's Supreme Court decision validating certain same-sex marriages has implications for laws implemented by the consumer bureau.

Wells Fargo executives said they support federal regulators' effort to expand mortgage credit availability but cautioned that it will produce little benefit for the bank's, or the industry's, bottom line.

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.

Radian Group and MGIC Investment are among mortgage insurers that would need to fill a financial gap under new financial-strength rules proposed by the Federal Housing Finance Agency.

Reducing the number of Home Loan banks would lower the cost of advances for community banks, leaving them with more money to lend out to their communities.

WASHINGTON — The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has yet to issue broad rules for payday lenders, but the bureau's $10 million settlement with ACE Cash Express Thursday sends another strong message about the practices it may target.