Law and regulation

"Attorney General Eric Holder's stunning admission that it was difficult to prosecute large banks because of the potential economic impact may be a turning point of the drive to break them up," writes American Banker's Rob Blackwell and Victoria Finkle.

Mouths dropped when Attorney General Eric Holder openly admitted that the government fears prosecuting big banks would harm the economy. But what about going after individual bankers for fraud? Does the Department of Justice really lack incriminating evidence — or just political will?

Cascade Bancorp (CACB), the holding company for the $1.3 billion-asset bank, said Thursday that the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and the Oregon Division of Finance and Corporate Securities have terminated an August 2009 cease-and-desist order with the bank.

Banks have convinced policymakers, regulators and sometimes the courts that new regulations might be too expensive. However, the point of public intervention is to induce banks to take account of costs they impose on others.

BIPS’ strategy: Make it easy for merchants to get started with Bitcoin, aggregate their balances with the company, and make money over time on foreign exchange conversion and premium services.

The move to align the Southwest Airlines and AirTran frequent flier credit cards under the same issuing bank is just one stop in the route toward the eventual merger of the two carriers' affinity programs.

Despite companies' strong performance in the Federal Reserve capital simulations mandated by the Dodd-Frank Act, stress tests for the largest banks have really only just begun.

Citigroup (NYSE:C) has asked the Federal Reserve to authorize a $1.2 billion share buyback program this year, in a bid to prove it has recovered from the financial crisis and improved its operations in the past year.

Lawmakers savaged the Treasury Department and banking regulators on Wednesday over their enforcement of anti-money laundering laws and the lack of criminal prosecutions against big banks for violating those provisions.

The biggest financial companies received their first official report cards of Dodd-Frank stress tests on Thursday, with Bank of New York leading the pack while Ally Financial fell far behind.

A number of banks will 'find themselves' in the year ahead via deals that redefine where they operate and what they do, a Deloitte study finds.

Our hope and plan was that the settlement would show principal reduction works and that it would spur the use of writedowns in other loan modifications. That is now occurring.

Aubrey Patterson keeps in touch with his successor and advises bankers to think twice before surpassing $10 billion in assets and earning more regulatory scrutiny.

Banks should be required to recognize losses on credit portfolios before the assets go into default, the International Accounting Standards Board said today.

Sticking with recent tradition, M&T CEO Robert Wilmers used his annual letter to shareholders to skewer the "too big to fail" banks he believes caused the financial crisis.

The largest U.S. banks are weighing whether to disregard a Federal Reserve request and announce their dividend plans shortly after the central bank's stress tests are released.

The public and bankers need to know that the OCC is making sound decisions and doing the right thing. But when it comes to the multi-billion foreclosure settlement, the agency's actions are a failure on both fronts.

Attorney General Eric Holder's stunning admission that it was difficult to prosecute large banks because of the potential economic impact adds significant ammunition to those seeking to break up such institutions.

Annapolis Bancorp (ANNB) in Maryland has repaid its Troubled Asset Relief Program funds in preparation for its sale to F.N.B. Corp (FNB).

The FTC issued checks totaling more than $1 million to consumers who were deceived by Residential Relief Foundation, concluding a nearly three-year-old case.