Law and regulation

In oral arguments held before the Supreme Court Tuesday, liberal justices appeared to struggle with plaintiffs' argument that state bans on credit card surcharges violate retailers' free speech, while the bench's conservatives appeared concerned about how states apply those bans.

Jeffrey Lacker, who has served as President of the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond since 2004, announced Tuesday that he is retiring after 28 years of service at the bank.

Two Republican senators sent a letter to Vice President-elect Mike Pence calling for the removal of Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Director Richard Cordray.

Two influential Democratic senators' surprise objections to the OCC's fintech charter show that the initiative may be more politically fraught than the industry and agency expected.

Corzine Settlement; Deutsche Fills Post; Student loans

Regulators here made strides to encourage innovation in 2016, while Brexit cast doubt on the London fintech boom. Yet the cross-Atlantic payments battle is just beginning.

American Banker readers share their views on the most pressing banking topics of the week. Comments are excerpted from reader response sections of AmericanBanker.com articles and our social media platforms.

American Express has prevailed in its latest round of legal sparring with the Justice Department.

For years, there's been a lot of talk about personal information as an unalloyed asset. But by now it should be clear that the more information a company has about its customers, the bigger a target it is for hackers.

WASHINGTON — The Senate Banking Committee is scheduled to hold a hearing Jan. 12 on the nomination of Dr. Ben Carson as secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

The lending arm of U.S. Department of Agriculture guaranteed 3,439 single-family construction loans in the first quarter of fiscal year 2017, which ended Dec. 31, but just nine of those loans involved its new single-close construction to permanent financing option.

A California consumer group on Thursday urged the Senate Finance Committee to delay Treasury Secretary-designate Steven Mnuchin's nomination hearing after a leaked 2013 memo described alleged illegal foreclosure practices at OneWest Bank when he was chairman and CEO.

One of the designers who worked on Kasisto's chatbot Kai argues that technologists are perpetuating female stereotypes; SoFi has some unusual ideas about how to get to know its customers better; and Fidelity gives in to the ETF trend. Also, Cathy Engelbert, Barbara Boxer and Megyn Kelly.

Fifth Third Bancorp in Cincinnati has a new chief legal officer.

In addition to citing fears about loosening underwriting standards, cyber threats and potential obsolescence, the OCC added sales practices as a source of significant risk to the banking industry in response to Wells Fargo's recent phony-accounts scandal.

Any method for unwinding too-big-to-fail institutions that tries to avoid bailouts is a fool's errand. A more effective path may be reducing the size of TBTF banks or regulating them as utilities.

WASHINGTON – Retailers are fighting back against financial industry efforts to repeal a cap on debit interchange fees.

Loan modification activity has fallen dramatically at national banks over the past year, according to a report released Wednesday by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.

President-elect Donald Trump's choice of well-known Wall Street lawyer Jay Clayton to head the Securities and Exchange Commission was a relatively safe move that suggests his other financial appointments may be equally conservative, industry observers said.

It's no secret that Washington has been upended since the presidential election, with Donald Trump's unexpected victory forcing observers to recast predictions about what will happen in the new year. Following is a guide to what policymakers to watch and who is poised to make the biggest impact in 2017.