Banco Popular de Puerto Rico

Washington's star-crossed mortgage foreclosure settlement suffered yet another setback this week when checks belatedly sent out to homeowners bounced. The troubles that have plagued the program from start to finish raise a number of broader questions. Among them: whether regulators' fondness for complex solutions is itself a recipe for failure and whether the foreclosure settlement's litany of troubles will lead to concrete policy changes.

A lack of growth in core deposit-taking and lending in the first quarter bodes ill for an industry that's still struggling to regain its post-crisis footing. The disappointing numbers are likely to intensify banks' push to expand into businesses like wealth management and auto lending.

"There are parts of Dodd-Frank that are good," but other parts of the sweeping financial reform law fall under the category of "more regulation, not better," according to William Harrison, the former CEO of JPMorgan Chase.

Eric John Abrahamson, author of "Building Home: Howard F. Ahmanson and the Politics of the American Dream," talks about what lenders today can learn from Howard F. Ahmanson's story.

Money transmitter licensing requirements, know-your-customer rules and other requirements create high costs and barriers to entry for new players in the payments field, says Dave Birch of Consult Hyperion. It's dubious that all the red tape is beneficial or necessary for payment accounts with small balances, he argues.

Wells Fargo is the latest big bank to try to get more revenue from its wealthiest clients by offering them fee-intensive investment-management products. But Wells and its wealth-management competitors, including JPMorgan Chase and PNC, also have to overcome their reputations and customers' reluctance to trust big banks.

Mortgage servicers have halted the foreclosure process for hundreds of thousands of empty homes across the country. That has left many properties deteriorating and the original owners liable for taxes and upkeep.

Some of the most influential women in payments, with backgrounds at American Express, Fifth Third, Fiserv and other companies, share what they learned as they advanced their careers.

A "terrible idea" is how former JPMorgan Chase (JPM) boss William Harrison describes the idea of splitting the Chairman and CEO roles now held by Jamie Dimon, and up for a shareholder vote on May 21.

As pressure on corporate directors has increased over the past decade, the relationship between directors has changed and governance has improved, says former JPMorgan Chase chairman and chief executive William Harrison.