Law and regulation

Four Oaks Fincorp (FOFN) in Four Oaks, N.C., and its bank have agreed to pay $1.2 million to settle claims they ignored warning signs of a scheme to defraud customers.

A sweeping set of mortgage rules that primarily target underwriting standards is due to take effect on Friday, but lenders, regulators and market experts remain unsure exactly what their impact will be.

The qualified-mortgage rule, reduced refi activity and ongoing commoditization are forcing smaller institutions to take a hard look at exiting the mortgage origination business.

If regulators want to limit the damage in Main Street communities, they should completely exempt Trups CDOs from the Volcker Rule. This would avoid needless writedowns without putting Main Street communities at financial risk.

Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., introduced legislation Thursday that would require banks to provide greater transparency around prepaid card fees.

Big banks have gotten an unfair rap and regulators an unjustified free pass since the financial crisis -- so argues longtime banking industry analyst Richard X. Bove in a new book. The outspoken Bove, now with Rafferty Capital Equity Research, tells American Banker why he believes the Dodd-Frank Act was unnecessary and federal regulators to blame for failing to prevent the crisis.

The European Commission is sticking to its original Single Euro Payment Area migration deadline of next month, but is establishing a grace period of an extra six months for banks and businesses struggling to make the switch to euro payment formats.

The Dodd-Frank Act and other financial regulations enacted in the wake of the financial crisis have made banking a "worse place" by adding unwieldy and unnecessary restrictions on big banks, says Dick Bove. The longtime bank analyst also points a finger at regulators for failing to adequately enforce existing regulations in the lead-up to the crisis, a point he discusses at length, while defending big banks, in a new book.

Fearless forecasts from BankThink's stable of industry veterans, experts and critics.

Members of the Senate Banking Committee and others are raising concerns about the credibility of a pending watchdog report analyzing whether some banks are still "too big to fail," suggesting some experts it relies on may be too closely tied to Wall Street.

JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM) lost a bid to throw out a lawsuit by the California attorney general alleging that the largest U.S. bank by assets illegally tried to collect debt from about 100,000 credit-card borrowers.

The authors of banking law have shown a strong and recurring interest in name-identification with their work. Eponyms can provoke emotional reactions and facilitate the merger of persona and policy.

Chamber of Commerce CEO Thomas Donohue, addressing reporters following the group's annual "State of American Business" address, said the potential reach of the Volcker Rule into smaller, midsized banks was not the intended effect.

Sens. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Tom Coburn, R-Okla., introduced legislation Wednesday that aims to provide the public with more accurate and detailed information about settlements between companies and federal agencies.

A group of lawmakers is stepping up pressure on regulators to adopt a narrow exemption for small banks under the Volcker Rule to address concerns over the treatment of collateralized debt obligations backed by trust-preferred securities.

JPMorgan Chase and UBS are among banks that received federal requests for information about trades in mortgage-backed securities after the financial crisis, two people briefed on the matter said.

In his first major move as head of the agency that oversees Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, ex-Rep. Mel Watt said Wednesday that he will delay a planned fee hike that would have raised the cost of most home loans backed by the government-sponsored enterprises.

Requiring HUD to take a stand on how it measures disparate impact may at least remove the anomaly whereby government unwittingly increases the chances a lender gets sued for discrimination.

The new year will bring an end to big regulatory settlements with banks, a sharp drop-off in the number of branches across the industry, increased use of biometric technology and a breakthrough in banks' use of big data. American Banker editors discuss these and other predictions for the year ahead in banking.

WASHINGTON — Former Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Chairman Sheila Bair will serve on the board of the RAND Corp. starting in April, the nonprofit research organization announced Tuesday.