PayThink

John C. Dugan, former comptroller of the currency, and T. Timothy Ryan Jr., former director of the Office of Thrift Supervision, insist that, despite some recent assertions to the contrary, the Dodd-Frank Act really does put end to the too-big-to-fail status of big banks.

During the boom, accounting rules kept banks from building thicker buffers against losses. This left them in a weaker position when the crisis hit. It's time to fix the mistake.

Dubious stress test results? External auditors who fail to flag insolvency in advance? The U.S. and U.K. have seen this film before.

From the CFPB to the FSOC to New York's ban on large soda cups, followers of behavioral theory have gone overboard in their rabid enthusiasm for governmental manipulation.

The California Supreme Court last week ruled in favor of preemption in a financial services case. The issue doesn't directly involve the Dodd-Frank Act, but has implications for its role in the preemption of state banking laws.

The company's fixed network fee penalizes merchants that route debit transactions to any competing network, and subverts the competition that the Durbin amendment was designed to foster.

Do you ever have that recurring dream that it's almost the end of the semester and you have yet to write a 2,000-page essay about your death? Or is that just me and maybe a handful bank officers?

Also, it's OK just to make transactions easier and cheaper, even if consumers don't "graduate" to a bank account. And eight other lessons from the premier conference in this space.

Jamie Dimon never had it, actually. He assiduously avoided subprime consumer credit, leaving profitable business on the table, but JPMorgan's recent trading loss reveals lax management of much greater risks.

We'll know that the banking industry has returned to full health when we see a significant number of new charters. We're not there yet.