Law and regulation

Banking was a tough business to thrive in over the past year. These ten executives stood out for savvy moves that enabled their companies to beat the odds.

A debt collector from Lonsdale, Minn. has been indicted for bank fraud, mail fraud and wire fraud, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office in Minneapolis.

Start the New Year right, with new ways to think about widening your bank's customer base, lowering your legal costs, mentoring your executives, maximizing tech investments and more.

Banking regulators' nonchalance about preparing for a crisis is puzzling.

LNB Bancorp in Lorain, Ohio, is inching its way toward exiting the Troubled Asset Relief Program.

Political squabbles on Capitol Hill and the tight presidential race put key confirmations on the backburner in 2012, but confirmed regulatory leaders will speed up progress on many fronts next year.

It is time for the FHA and its supporters to put the interest of working-class families ahead of real estate agents and other interest groups who want to expand its abusive lending practices.

Uncharacteristically for a bank, BankPlus decided four years ago to compete with payday lenders. Now it successfully offers a small-dollar loan product, with significantly better terms.

Bachus, Hensarling seek a two-year wait period on implementation. At that rate, a rule first authorized in 2010 won't take effect until 2015.

The landscape has changed radically in the last two decades. In most states, the number of banks has fallen sharply. But some states have emerged as storehouses for the nation's lending giants.

It's been a rocky year for digital currencies. Facebook began phasing out its Facebook Credits while Bitcoin continues to suffer a bad reputation. However, there are some promising developments on the horizon, with experienced payments providers joining in the digital currency game.

Delanco Federal Savings Bank in New Jersey must fix asset-quality, risk management and other problems under a written agreement with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.

Third Federal Savings & Loan Association of Cleveland said regulators terminated its memorandum of understanding, which had mandated an outside assessment of its management of interest-rate risk.

The FHA in its current form could not handle an emergency backstop role but would have a much better chance if moved out of HUD and combined with Ginnie Mae and the remnants of Fannie and Freddie.

This has been a difficult year to run a foreign-owned bank in the United States, but BBVA Compass aims to parlay a recent core overhaul into new growth opportunities in 2013, CEO Manolo Sanchez says.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau on Friday specified changes it would like to make to a rule designed to increase regulation of international money transfers.

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency has taken enforcement measures against six banks and terminated actions against a half dozen others.

The Senate has passed a bill that would direct the Government Accountability Office to examine the economic benefits large banks receive for being "too big to fail."

In a one-hour interview at his office in Massachusetts earlier this year, Rep. Barney Frank was surprisingly open, discussing what motivated him to get into politics, his personal life, and the cause of political gridlock in Congress.

Bankers are raising concerns that a new Financial Accounting Standards Board proposal that would allow banks to set aside reserves for future losses is too open-ended and might result in banks putting too much aside.