Law and regulation

After years of government and telco-backed testing of contactless mobile payments in France, a major bank is ready to provide a significant boost to the country's Near Field Communication project.

American Express does not expect the discount rate it charges merchants to fall under the jurisdiction of regulations being considered by the European Union to place caps on interchange fees.

Senate lawmakers held a hearing Wednesday to urge regulators to clamp down on a debt collection industry criticized for poor documentation practices and conflicts of interest.

With mortgage rates climbing in recent weeks homeowners have switched from feverishly pursuing refinancing to buying new homes, a Federal Reserve Board report said Wednesday.

After the Senate's confirmation of Richard Cordray as director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren applauded the decision at an event celebrating the bureau's second anniversary.

Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke told lawmakers that a future housing finance reform plan should provide clarity to the private sector about the level of support the government provides to the market.

The new leverage ratio is a relatively modest proposal that can be easily addressed by the affected banks without material capital raises or changes in distribution policy.

The Senate's confirmation of Richard Cordray as head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau ends a long period of uncertainty for the new agency – and for the banks that it regulates. It also effectively ends efforts by Republicans and the industry to change the structure of the CFPB.

Sens. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., and Mark Warner, D-Va., emphasized the bipartisan compromises the two have made in crafting their proposed overhaul of the mortgage finance system.

The Senate's approval of Richard Cordray's nomination to lead the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is likely to end the Republicans' push for a change to the bureau's structure.

Banks and payment card providers would face caps on the transaction fees they can demand from retailers under European Union plans to rein in charges that have been attacked by regulators as anticompetitive.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, architect and founder of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, says agency is "the law of the land, and … here to stay."

The Senate's approval of Richard Cordray's nomination to run the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau likely puts an end to another crucial fight over the bureau's structure and its ability to impose far-reaching regulations on the industry.

For the past two weeks, Visa, MasterCard and Discover have been meeting with each other and with regional debit networks to hammer out the business agreements necessary to route debit transactions on EMV-chip cards in the U.S.

A lawsuit against Credit Management Services, a Grand Island, Neb. collection agency, can continue as a class action that might include as many as 27,000 eligible Nebraskans, U.S. District Judge Joseph F. Bataillon has ruled.

The Senate's approval of Richard Cordray's nomination to run the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau does more than give the agency a permanent director: it also removes Republicans' biggest bargaining chip in their longstanding push to force key structural changes at the agency.

Herb Allison, who died Sunday, turned out to have far more in common with his critics than seemed possible during the heat of the financial crisis.

An encompassing denominator and full disclosure requirements should assuage concerns that Basel fails to go far enough to cushion banks for unexpected losses.

Other reforms are getting short shrift while federal regulators fascinate over the power of capital rules to reform the banking business.

Notwithstanding recent media criticism, there is little doubt that these products offer a better alternative for unbanked and underbanked consumers who would otherwise use a cash-based system to manage their finances.