PayThink

Not adjustable rate, variable rate. Unlike the ARMs we know here in the U.S., Canada's VRMs solve the vexing trade-off between monthly payment risk and interest rate risk. The product deserves a close look here south of the border.

David Hirschmann, the president and chief executive of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's Center for Capital Markets Competitiveness, has some suggestions for Richard Cordray. In a letter to the CFPB director he "cited concerns about the new 'abusive' standard that was added to the Dodd-Frank Act, along with the already statutory terms 'unfair and deceptive practices,'" writes American Banker’s Rob Blackwell.

Dodd-Frank has had "crushing impact" on banks and businesses according report from the Georgia Public Policy Foundation and the Competitive Enterprise Institute.

Neither the FSOC nor the OFR is up and running well enough to address systemic risk. The Systemic Risk Council, a new private-sector nonprofit group, will likely change that.

For some bankers, doing well by doing bad has become a way of life. If ever there was a time to raise the cost of wrongdoing, Liborgate is it.

A basketball coach's praise for his opponent serves as a reminder that the best results come from hustle and hard work.

Lending to American consumers, businesses and other entities is, as best practiced, far from a simple business. Going beyond this to dabble in opaque markets will inevitably degrade the competence with which banks' basic business is conducted.

Though banks must show they are resolvable, a financial institution can also use its resolution plan to advocate preferred solutions to issues on the horizon. And other lessons from the process so far.

Bankers are concerned about how sharing information with the Consumer Financial Protection Agency will affect client confidentiality. "Typically, information given to a third party loses attorney-client privilege, and prior legislation formally exempted the other bank regulators from that rule," writes American Banker's Joe Adler. "But Dodd-Frank did not expressly include the CFPB in that exemption.”

We won't have another nationwide bubble for 35 years or so. By then, cautionary tales from 2007-09 will seem irrelevant to those with modern skills and advanced risk management capability.