Law and regulation

Payroll card provider ADP is updating its technology to provide greater visibility into users' financial health at a time when payroll cards face fresh scrutiny over costs to users.

MasterCard Inc., in a conference call today to discuss the European Commission's proposal to cut card fees paid by retailers, says it supports increasing competition but warns the proposed regulation could have unintended consequences.

Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., a co-author of housing finance legislation, urged the House and Senate to pass their bills that offer different replacements for Fannie and Freddie. The bills can be reconciled in negotiations later, he said.

Governments need to consider the advantages of a good bank-bad bank restructuring while loan assets currently have determinable and probably higher values than earlier in the crisis.

Officials with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and a Maine state regulator said they would look into more stringent disclosure requirements and other measures for payday loan-type products.

New York Private Bank & Trust, the parent company of Emigrant Bank, has fully repaid its Troubled Asset Relief Program funds.

Carol Galante, the commissioner of the Federal Housing Administration, told lawmakers discussing broad reforms to the housing agency that more targeted action is needed in the short term to repair the FHA's reverse mortgage program.

Gayle Manchin has been elected to serve on the board of MVB Financial, the Fairmont, W.Va., bank, it announced Monday. Her husband, Joe Manchin, was West Virginia governor from 2005 through 2010 and is now the state's junior U.S. senator.

The debate over the Warren-McCain bill should start by correcting some popular misunderstandings.

WASHINGTON — The House Financial Services Committee narrowly approved legislation to overhaul the mortgage finance system Wednesday morning after more than 10 hours of back-and-forth debate on Tuesday.

Comerica, Huntington, M&T Bank, Northern Trust and Discover are among the next wave of holding companies set to join the 18 others now required to participate in annual exams that test banks' capital strength in times of stress.

Boston University professor Con Hurley's plan would require systemically important firms to set aside reserves equal to the net advantage — funding and otherwise — they get for being big.

Politicians who blindly supported restrictive AML guidelines now proclaim disgust as a global bank severs relationships with firms that send money to Somalia. But Barclays is merely exercising understandable caution.

With the House Financial Services Committee imminently voting on a bill to wind down and replace Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, you might think Washington is finally moving on GSE reform. Not so fast.

Even free-marketeers must recognize initial conditions. The markets we have today are set up to invest in government-guaranteed mortgage-backed securities. To remove the guarantee without crippling damage would take decades.

The Financial Stability Oversight Council, designed under the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act to identify risks to the stability of the financial system, labeled Prudential Financial as a risky nonbank financial company last Thursday.

A Connecticut bankruptcy attorney and her outsourced legal support services provider filed a lawsuit in federal court accusing the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau of overstepping its authority in asking for privileged and sensitive information.

A new report from the Tarp inspector general says the Treasury Department failed to analyze its own data to determine which borrowers were most at risk of losing their homes to foreclosure after receiving government support.

The House Financial Services Committee was expected to approve a Republican-backed bill to remove government support in a new housing finance system, but senators continue to back a more bipartisan approach that preserves a federal backstop.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau filed a federal complaint Tuesday against Castle & Cooke Mortgage for giving bonuses to loan officers who allegedly steered consumers into mortgages with higher interest rates.