Law and regulation

While it's unlikely Congress will enact a bill solely devoted to extending full FDIC coverage for transaction accounts, the "lame-duck" session does allow several opportunities for renewing the deposit insurance program.

An independent audit found that the Federal Housing Administration's capital reserve ratio fell into negative territory, meaning the agency may need a bailout from the Treasury Department for the first time in its 78-year history.

The Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council is providing guidelines to help industry participants better identify and analyze security risks.

If regulators continue to sting banks with overzealous enforcement actions and ill-conceived policies, they, like the scorpion in Aesop's fable, could find themselves up the creek without a frog or paddle.

Would the orderly liquidation authority in Title II of the Dodd-Frank Act work as intended in a megabank failure? The Clearing House Association staged a simulation to war-game that question and found it did.

The torrid pace of innovation in the financial industry, especially in the mobile-payment sector, brings problems as well as opportunity. One of those problems is patent issues.

The Senate late Thursday confirmed the top two senior officials to lead the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. following months of uncertainty.

Wordpress, the world’s most popular Web publishing platform, has begun accepting Bitcoin, an international digital currency and payment system with no central issuing authority.

A bill to protect the nation's critical infrastructure from cyberattacks has again failed to clear a congressional hurdle.

Bankers may have fallen out of love with the Obama administration, but they're still hoping that its next Treasury Secretary will solve some of their problems.

The Federal Reserve Board on Thursday gave the 19 largest financial institutions the economic variables that will be used to assess a firm's capital strength and resiliency to withstand an economic crisis.

The Financial Stability Oversight Council is looking at three possible reforms to the money market mutual fund industry, building on recommendations from SEC Chairman Mary Schapiro.

Tom Hoenig, a FDIC board member, reiterated his doubts that too big to fail has been eliminated, and offered his prescriptions for strengthening the system.

Capitol Bancorp (CBCRQ) has been fighting for survival for a few years now, but the next month might prove to be its toughest battle.

Dodd-Frank requires the CFPB to encourage financial innovation. The agency's Project Catalyst will colloborate with three alternative companies to gain a better understanding of how to support start-up financial players.

House Republicans issued a report Thursday that blames the failure of brokerage firm MF Global on former Sen. Jon Corzine's leadership of the firm, adding that a lack of coordination among regulators also played a role.

With construction activity, sales, and home prices still well below pre-crisis levels, a revival of U.S. housing sector "still faces significant challenges and the benefits remain quite uneven," Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke said Thursday.

The lender said it has committed $500 million to refinance underwater borrowers and has fulfilled its obligation to provide relief in Florida and California.

Sheila Bair may advocate a lifelong commitment for examiners, but given existing rules, the fears of potential conflicts of interest should be more hypothetical than real.

The Federal Trade Commission on Thursday announced six new law enforcement actions, the first cases brought under the FTC’s updated Business Opportunity Rule, which requires business opportunity sellers to provide specific information to help consumers evaluate a business opportunity, and provides a simple, one-page disclosure form.