PayThink

A recent BankThink post bemoans the one-size-fits-all application of Basel III. But the reason capital rules have become so sweeping is that banks have become bigger, more complex and more connected to the global economy.

Political denial and cover-up are in the CFPB's DNA. The agency was predestined to be overbearing, which will only hurt borrowers in the long run.

Require megabanks to pay their stealth subsidies into a reserve available only to creditors and the FDIC. Market discipline will do the rest, as shareholders demand that the banks shrink.

It seems clear that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau believes balloon mortgages are not abusive or predatory. Why, then, does the rule so restrict their use?

Why haven't any senior Wall Street executives gone to jail for the financial crisis? PBS' "Frontline" is the latest mass media outlet to ask this increasingly unanswerable question.

The Progressive Campaign Change Committee, a liberal activist group, has recorded over 33,000 names on a petition backing Rep. Barney Frank for a temporary Senate seat.

House Democrats on the Financial Services Committee are not only sending letters to regulators on financial services-related rules in the Dodd-Frank reform law, but they are also focusing on foreign energy extraction.

If you want to avoid catastrophic outcomes, don't rely on stress test models with hundreds of variables. Focus on finding the small number of factors that could individually precipitate failure.

It's easy to forget sometimes there remain leaders at credit unions who didn't enter the industry as a freshly minted MBA pursuing a careful "career path." Who began at the bottom with no map for what was ahead. Teri McEwan is one of those people.

A synopsis of a new white paper from the CUNA Lending Council, "Demystifying Private Student Loans," that seeks to clear up some of the misconceptions as well as examine the portfolios of five credit unions that offer these loans.