Law and regulation

As the volume of Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. suits against failed-bank officers and directors continues to rise, few cases are approaching anything close to an outcome.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency has hired a lobbyist for the force-placed insurance industry as its point man in reforming a market allegedly riddled with industry kickbacks.

When the government backs any system, the beneficiaries have only limited interest in the risks they are taking. Senators Corker and Warner have fallen into this trap.

Many developed countries, free from the U.S. impulse to see every product as something to track, do not share its inclination to frown on financial privacy.

A fair-housing case provides the industry an opportunity to stamp out the longstanding legal theory that there can be lending discrimination without evidence of intent.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren raised the issue about the regulatory burden facing community banks at a Senate Banking Committee hearing.

To keep costs down, insurers are exercising their right under the Affordable Care Act to insist consumers pay their premiums via automatic bank withdrawal. The Department of Health and Human Services is scrambling to make insurers accept plastic.

CFPB Director Richard Cordray said employers "play a critical role" in strengthening consumers' financial capability.

A recap of the informed opinions (and the discussions they generated) on BankThink and AmericanBanker.com this week.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. knows it must put some meat on the bones of its process for dismantling large financial firms, but is struggling to strike the right balance between providing too much detail and not enough.

Thomas Hoenig, vice chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., said banks chasing 20% returns are aiming too high.

Straightening out bad actors is fine, but it won’t resolve the inconsistencies and consumer confusion about overdraft protection cited by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Pakistan is considering a law requiring banks to give the country's tax revenue agency access to online databases of account holders and their transactions.

Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., the second-ranking Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee, earned a cameo in a ballet performance at the Metropolitan Opera House.

Bankers defended force-placed insurance practices and dodged questions about alleged industry kickbacks and price gouging at a private but well-attended meeting hosted by the Federal Housing Finance Agency.

The nation's highest court is expected to announce Monday whether it will hear arguments in a case with the potential to dramatically lower banks' exposure to allegations of lending discrimination.

Goldman Sachs chief executive Lloyd Blankfein backed Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. efforts, mandated under the Dodd-Frank Act, to create a rule for orderly closures of big firms.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has lost more than a dozen senior officials in recent months, raising concerns whether the agency will be able to maintain the aggressive pace set during its nearly two years of existence.

Visa Inc. sued Wal-Mart Stores Inc. in a bid to stop the world's largest retailer from filing a lawsuit to press price-fixing claims over merchant swipe fees.

Federal regulators must not rely on standard measures of differences between outcome rates without considering the way those measures change simply because the frequency of an outcome changes.