Law and regulation

Joe Pierce, the president and CEO of Farmers State Bank, says a holiday ad, of all things, put him in an FDIC examiner's crosshairs.

It's time to kill CAMELS, says Richard J. Parsons, a Bank of America risk executive.

WASHINGTON — Wisconsin suffered its first bank failure in over two years late Friday as regulators closed a small institution in Kenosha and sold off most of its operations.

The Federal Reserve Board hit Naugatuck Valley with a memorandum of understanding on May 21, the $526 million-asset company said late Friday.

Liberty Deserved? A number of the comments on AmericanBanker.com and BankThink this week were strikingly sympathetic to digital currency issuer Liberty Reserve, which was indicted for alleged money laundering, and its customers. These readers were outraged that the authorities came down so hard on the Costa Rican outfit after serving megabank HSBC with a mere fine for similar money laundering charges. They were also skeptical of the government's explanations of its stance on virtual currencies and fearful for Bitcoin entrepreneurs and users who feel increasingly threatened by government encroachment. Commenting on American Banker Washington Bureau Chief Rob Blackwell's Q&A with Financial Crimes Enforcement Network Director Jennifer Shasky Calvery, one reader questioned her description of Liberty Reserve as the biggest money laundering operation ever. "Did you ask about her selective memory? HSBC's 'pervasively polluted' culture involved more money than Liberty Reserve, for instance." Another commenter saw ulterior motives in the prosecution: "The action against LR [had] nothing to do with money laundering. It was to undermine the growth of Bitcoin which [the government] considers more of a threat than the much greater money laundering by the likes of HSBC (which has more blood on its hands than a 1,000 LRs)." Our own "Monetary Future" columnist, digital currency expert Jon Matonis, noted that Liberty Reserve has been around since 2001, and wondered why the U.S. waited so long to prosecute the company. "Why are their 'crimes' of providing a neutral value transfer service more egregious than they were before?" But at least one reader found the government's position eminently reasonable, writing, "money transmitters need to identify people they transfer money for, and to report suspicious activity...we will either remain serious about money laundering/terrorist financing issues, or we can revert back to our pre-Sept 11 head-in-the-sand mentality." In his own column, Matonis talked to a venture capital fund dedicated to Bitcoin startups that's hired former Treasury officials as advisors, underscoring the increasing importance of compliance smarts to such businesses.

Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, is urging the Federal Reserve Board to issue guidance about the transition time for institutions to comply with the new swaps push-out rule.

Could cyberattacks bring down the U.S. financial network? Chuck Hagel thinks it's possible. Shielding the U.S. against the destructive potential of digital threats is among the top priorities for the nation, the Defense Secretary said.

First California Bank in Westlake Village, Calif., and an affiliated prepaid card provider must pay fines of over $1.7 million for how they used a reloadable card product to deliver federal benefits payments, the FDIC said Friday.

The federal agency announced Friday that it was breaking up its complaint database by state and adding money transfer and credit reporting complaints to its already comprehensive look at consumer issues.

MasterCard Inc. will stop using Goldman Sachs Group Inc. for asset-management services after discussing the matter with a firm that advises shareholders on proxy votes.

Sen. Mike Crapo, the top Republican on the Senate Banking Committee, is striking a new pose this week, announcing that he joined Instagram, an online social media service for sharing photos.

Under the Dodd-Frank Act, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau had to outline requirements to ensure lenders adequately assessed a borrower's ability to repay a loan and create ultra-safe "qualified mortgages" that were protected from legal liability. Despite the challenge, the mortgage rule revisions the agency provided were able to please both bankers and consumer groups.

The 2010 Dodd-Frank Act gave responsibility to the Financial Stability Oversight Council to identify several nonbank financial companies as systemically risky.

Benjamin K. Olson, who was deputy assistant director in the CFPB's office of regulations, has joined the Washington office of BuckleySandler LLP as counsel, the law firm said this week.

Freddie says its new "low-activity" fee will offset the cost of monitoring the loans it buys, but avoiding it could be a challenge for lenders in rural markets.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. has taken enforcement actions against eight banks and freed 12 others from prior orders, according to a series of orders released Friday.

Net interest margins are complex beasts. During the last Fed tightening cycle, the yield curve turned negative and margins narrowed.

The Financial Stability Oversight Council is close to identifying several nonbank financial companies as systemically risky after spending years ironing out how it would undertake the first-time effort.

The lack of a standard technology model for mobile point of sale payments is not only holding back consumer adoption, it's also affecting regulatory compliance, says Mphasis' Kumail Tyebjee.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has managed to take one of the most controversial provisions of the Dodd-Frank Act — a rule that would effectively redefine the mortgage market — and craft it in a way to please both the banking industry and consumer groups.