Law and regulation

It's hard to believe but true: more than 700 banks maintained a pristine Camels 1 rating throughout the six-year period bracketing the financial crisis. New Fed research shows why.

The nation's biggest banks may be too big to fail but they enjoy little advantage when it comes to the cost of capital.

The more that compensation designs depart from well-grounded pay-for-performance principles, including appropriate metrics and actual financial results, the less effective they are as an incentive

Fair Debt Collection Practices Act lawsuits filed against collection agencies and creditors posted large gains on a month-to-month basis as well as compared with a year ago, a reversal of last year's trend.

A turn towards small local Bitcoin exchanges could keep the digital currency out of trouble while preserving the self-sufficient ethos of the Bitcoin community.

Assistant Attorney General Mythili Raman acknowledges "complexities" in investigating bigger banks but tells a House panel that they "do not equal immunity" from criminal action.

Lawmakers on the House Financial Services Committee grilled Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew on Wednesday over various policy issues, including the Volcker rule, mortgage finance reform and the Internal Revenue Service scandal.

Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke told lawmakers that his concerns about financial stability risks from historically low interest rates have "increased a bit."

The most effective housing reform would let the GSEs do what they do best: act as a conduit for private capital to enter the residential lending market.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is expanding efforts to coordinate with state bank and nonbank regulators on supervision and enforcement.

Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf said that he believes the government-sponsored enterprises need to be retained in some form because the guarantee they provide is important to investors.

As much as David Fiderer and others try to defend the GSEs and the policies that drove them into insolvency, the taxpayers who bailed them out are unlikely to be fooled.

The Federal Trade Commission announced Tuesday plans to ban the use of four payment methods favored by con artists and scammers.

Now that shareholders have agreed to let Jamie Dimon keep both his jobs at JPMorgan Chase, the chairman and chief executive must resolve several pressing issues. Among them: succession, board composition and mounting regulatory scrutiny.

Lawmakers blasted senior officials at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau on Tuesday, arguing they were too rigid with recently finalized mortgage rules that could choke off access to credit.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and Starbucks Corp. are among 19 retailers opting out of a $7.25 billion antitrust settlement with Visa Inc. and MasterCard Inc. over fees charged to merchants to process credit-card transactions.

A public rift is emerging among some of the Democratic attorneys general who forged the 49-state mortgage settlement with five major banks over how aggressively to enforce servicing standards.

Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew said Tuesday that lawmakers should hold off on further legislative reforms to the financial system until Dodd-Frank is fully implemented, echoing recent remarks from top Federal Reserve Board officials and large bank executives.

Until a mechanism to shut the biggest and baddest is well in place, the prospect of taxpayer bailout will distort financial markets and handicap competitors.

The Fed on May 15 lifted a 2009 written agreement that barred the $326 million-asset Tysan from taking on debt or repurchasing stock without regulatory approval.