Law and regulation

The head of the presidential task force combating financial crimes has resigned to join the private sector.

The capital rules are too complicated, making it easy for banks to manipulate them. There's only one way to fix them — make them a lot simpler.

GOP lawmakers are raising concerns that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's former deputy director, Raj Date, and other staffers "left the CFPB in order to profit from rules they helped create."

Ocwen is close to reaching a settlement with federal regulators and it appears the giant servicer will agree to make cash payments to borrowers who were harmed during the foreclosure process.

Thanks to enhanced regulatory expectations, directors and managers have more new responsibilities than they might realize.

Avidbank Holdings in Palo Alto, Calif., has completed the redemption of its Troubled Asset Relief Program stock.

Lawmakers have authorized the Federal Housing Administration to make a narrow set of changes to its reverse mortgages program to help the troubled program avert more radical reforms later this year.

A group of 37 House Democratic women are asking President Obama to name Janet Yellen, vice chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, to succeed Ben Bernanke as chairman of the Fed when his term expires.

Legislation to reform the Federal Housing Administration sailed through the Senate Banking Committee on Wednesday, but the bill's future, along with that of broader, comprehensive mortgage reform, remain up in the air as Congress prepares to break for the August recess on Friday.

The proposal has calculations that would address deficiencies, but also tries to balance risk sensitivity with not making the derivatives counterparty charges overly complex.

A federal judge's ruling on the Durbin Amendment is likely to cost the banking industry billions of dollars each year.

"An Alternative Plan to Fix TBTF: Lay Big Banks' Subsidy Bare" (July 25), on Professor Cornelius Hurley's plan to account for implicit government subsidies, is an important contribution to the conversation on how to end Too Big to Fail.

Retailers were singing the praises of a federal judge's ruling July 31 that the Federal Reserve Board overstepped its authority in how it capped debit-card fees. And banks were humming a different tune.

President Barack Obama plans to name Federal Reserve Governor Sarah Bloom Raskin as deputy Treasury Secretary, making her the highest-ranking woman in the history of the Treasury department.

Relief bills are gaining momentum in Congress, leading many community bankers' to believe their regulatory burdens will ease by yearend.

The Senate Banking Committee approved legislation to reform the Federal Housing Administration on Wednesday to help stabilize the agency's beleaguered reverse mortgages program and strengthen its underwriting standards.

Federal regulators issued proposed guidance to help mid-tier banks comply with stress test requirements this October.

Just when banks thought they had adjusted to life under the Durbin cap on debit card interchange fees, a court has deal them a huge and unexpected blow. Bucking the usual judicial practice of deferring to regulators, a federal judge has ruled that the Fed set the cap too high at 21 cents and disregarded the intent of the Dodd-Frank Act. Expect appeals and a protracted fight that could take years to settle the matter.

The Federal Reserve disregarded Congress's intent when deciding how much banks can charge merchants for debit-card transactions, a judge ruled, rejecting Dodd-Frank-imposed regulations governing "swipe" fees.

The Federal Reserve disregarded Congress's intent when deciding how much banks can charge merchants for debit-card transactions, a judge ruled, rejecting Dodd-Frank-imposed regulations governing "swipe" fees.