PayThink

Liability insurance companies generally argue allowing banks to receive insurance coverage for overdraft litigation settlements violates public policy and rewards supposed wrongdoing, but there typically is no explicit exclusion in a policy that justifies this and other go-to positions.

"It was more like a poke in the eye with a sharp stick" says former FDIC chair Shelia Bair in response to Mitt Romney's assertion during the first presidential debate that the "systemically important" designation under Dodd-Frank was a the "biggest kiss" to Wall Street.

Federal Reserve Board Gov. Daniel Tarullo advocated size caps on banks and raised concerns about the lack of a definition of "financial stability" in the Dodd-Frank Act, during a speech.

Viable restructuring alternatives to bank holding company debt do exist and will open the door to conventional M&A options or attract fresh equity.

Proclaim the beliefs you would fight for – the essence of what differentiates your bank from others – then carefully ensure that every action, from your marketing, to your interactions and behaviors, matches those values.

Bankers at institutions with between $10 and 50 billion can breathe a sign of relief. They've been anticipating an extension on the stress tests mandated by Dodd-Frank, and the regulatory agencies gave it to them in the final rulings.

Big banks' interchange revenue appears to be climbing out of the Durbin crater. At banks exempt from the Dodd-Frank price controls, meanwhile, such revenue is speeding along unscathed. Check out our interactive graphic that breaks out revenue for each institution.

The regulatory maze currently being created under the pretext of helping the consumer and preventing the next housing bust will do neither and will continue to impede the recovery.

Public-private partnerships designed to dispose of banks’ costly noncore assets allow governments to transform themselves into facilitators of a banking revival, banks to bolster their balance sheets and private investors to gain access to a pool of profitable assets providing attractive rates of return.

Mitt Romney may be getting impatient for the final rule on the "qualified mortgage" definition from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, but lenders are taking their best – and very conservative – guess at it for now.