PayThink

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.

Senator David Vitter (R- La.) predicts that regulators, using their authority under Dodd-Frank, will "once again bail out Wall Street and its creditors, perhaps with some feel-good (and probably politicized) restructuring of those firms for window dressing" when the next financial crisis hits.

FHFA is admirably trying to design a platform that will work under any future scenario for the mortgage market. But history shows large-scale projects can fall victim to sheer complexity.

Most customers want to spend less time on their finances, not more. They will flock where they are rewarded for transacting conveniently, rather than for counting their pennies through PFM.

Financial institutions can avoid negative headlines by monitoring feedback via social media, continually educating staff on how to talk to customers and making reputation risk a major part of their enterprise risk management program.

A non-profit organization is launching a campaign to make sure bank employees know about new whistleblower protections under the Dodd-Frank Act.

A LinkedIn discussion thread mulls a potential hazard of rigid risk management: Does an unyielding concern for risk impede financial institutions from coming up with creative solutions to traditional problems?

Parting wisdom from John Annaloro, CEO of the Washington Credit Union League and the then Northwest Credit Union Association.