Law and regulation

The Federal Reserve was given a week to tell a federal judge its position on immediately rewriting regulations setting debit card swipe fees in the wake of a court found the current rule unlawful.

A new group of merchants, including Delta Airlines, Emerald Foods, Callaway Golf Sales, Duke Energy, Men's Warehouse, MGM Resorts and Travelocity, filed suit in federal court Aug. 13 claiming Visa and MasterCard are violating the Sherman Antitrust Act by operating under identical rules for card acceptance.

Simplification of the Basel capital rules — the topic of my first post — will get a full airing at the Salzburg Global Seminar's upcoming confab.

The Occupy Wall Street protests a few years ago set the stage for the coming return of fair-lending gadflies like the "mother of CRA," Gale Cincotta.

Two former JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM) employees were charged by U.S. prosecutors with attempting to conceal trading losses at the largest U.S. bank last year as part of a probe of its $6.2 billion loss on derivatives bets.

House Financial Services Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling is "cautiously optimistic" that the House will vote this fall on his bill to reform the mortgage finance market and hold a conference with the Senate to resolve policy disagreements.

A former Bank of America (BAC) executive whose work on mortgage bonds is the subject of lawsuits by the Federal Housing Finance Agency and the Justice Department was hired by Fannie Mae months after the claims began to surface.

The Federal Trade Commission has proposed additions to the Telemarketing Sales Rule that could have unintended consequences for the underbanked.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the Justice Department announced last week that they are investigating PNC Financial Services' mortgage lending. The probe into the Pittsburgh-based bank's mortgage pricing is causing some to worry that regulators are preparing to investigate other large banks for alleged loan discrimination.

Rep. Jeb Hensarling, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, said Tuesday that he remains hopeful the House will take a vote this fall to reform the mortgage finance market and move toward a conference with the Senate, despite ongoing policy disagreements.

A probe into PNC Financial Services' mortgage lending is stoking fears that regulators are preparing to crack down on other large banks for alleged loan discrimination ahead of a Supreme Court case that might curb the use of the controversial "disparate impact" theory.

For fans of stress-testing, the IMF has a new primer on what it takes to make one credible.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has closed an investigation of Suffolk Bancorp (SUBK) in Riverhead, N.Y.

As they push to have over-the-counter derivatives cleared with central counterparties, regulators must not let these clearing houses become systemic risks themselves.

The brouhaha over a court ruling that debit card fee caps be lowered overshadowed another problem for banks: the decision could also enable merchants to play card networks against one another on signature debit transactions.

I applaud the government's efforts to weed out bad actors, but I'm deeply concerned about the unintended consequences this could have on much needed financial services for underbanked people.

Michael Andrew Collier, a fully disabled veteran, has voluntarily withdrawn his lawsuit against a law firm he alleged told him he "should have died" rather than collect disability payments, according to federal court documents.

Bruno Iksil, the former JPMorgan Chase trader whose bets caused more than $6.2 billion in losses last year, is now central to any U.S. charges against his former colleagues.

Eric Schneiderman, New York's top law enforcer, filed a suit Monday against three online lenders and their owners, alleging that they violated usury laws by making loans that carry annual interest rates of between 89% and 335%.

Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders say Fed chair candidates should spell out whether they are willing to break up "too big to fail" banks and if the financial crisis was caused by the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act.