Law and regulation

Policymakers appear unwilling to take on the future of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as they face other issues and the housing market begins to recover.

A bill to merge the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission has been introduced by Reps. Barney Frank and Mike Capuano.

This newly discovered, expanded version of Aesop's most famous fable bears an eerie resemblance to the modern day and sheds new light on its tragic moral.

After 33 years as a lobbyist for the American Bankers Association, Peter Blocklin is retiring from the trade group. He plans to open a small consulting firm called Rotunda Strategies.

Small banks face a tough outlook for 2013, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau warns credit reporting firms, Barney Frank's impact on banking.

Legal Helpers Debt Resolution collected an estimated $2.5 million in fees from Oregon residents since 2009, despite not being registered to conduct business in the state as required by law.

A lawsuit filed Thursday claims Swedish Covenant Hospital, a nonprofit Chicago facility, violated the state's charity care provisions.

FDIC board member Thomas Hoenig proposes corresponding a bank's required capital minimum to its Camels rating and subjecting big banks to more detailed exams.

The average credit union is billions of dollars smaller than the behemoth banks. And the overall quality of credit union business loans is much higher than that of bank commercial loans.

Reps. Barney Frank and Mike Capuano have introduced a new bill to combine the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, calling the existence of the two separate agencies a "structural defect."

Regulators sought to assure lawmakers and financial institutions on Thursday that they would weigh potential conflicts from a slew of proposed mortgage regulations due out shortly as they finalize Basel III capital and liquidity rules.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau raised concerns in a bulletin that consumer reporting agencies may be holding free information from their customers. They have issued warning letters to six agencies that have made it too difficult for consumers to find their annual reports.

Wintrust Financial would sell the $161 million in deposits and three branches it bought from the failed Second Federal Savings and Loan to a credit union. Regulators will OK such deals under the right conditions, experts say.

The incoming and outgoing chairmen of the House Financial Services Committee — Reps. Jeb Hensarling and Spencer Bachus, respectively — are urging banking regulators to delay implementation of the Volcker Rule until 2015.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau said Thursday it has issued warning letters to six specialty reporting agencies for making it too difficult for consumers to find their free annual reports.

Industry groups and consumer advocates have joined forces to urge lawmakers to extend the Mortgage Forgiveness Debt Relief Act, warning that expiration of the 2007 law could hamper the housing recovery.

U.S. home-price gains this year weren't large enough to justify an increase in the maximum size of loans that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will purchase in 2013, the companies' regulator said today.

Consumer-focused regulations, in general, should reflect what financial products actually do, not the technicalities of who issues them or what legal status they hold.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau issued a bulletin Thursday raising concerns that specialty consumer reporting agencies are not easily releasing free information to consumers.

Former Fannie Mae chief executive Michael Williams has been appointed to chair the board of directors of Prospect Mortgage LLC.