Opinions

Two new government reports suggest that U.S. consumers’ fortunes have improved since the start of the pandemic, with bankruptcies falling sharply and fewer people falling behind on bills. But it’s not clear how long the positive trends will sustain themselves as government relief efforts wind down and evictions and foreclosures resume.

The head of the Federal Reserve appeared to support Congress’s expanding the scope of the Community Reinvestment Act to unregulated institutions, just as regulators weigh how to modernize the framework for banks.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen plans to name Michael Hsu, associate director of bank supervision at the Federal Reserve, to be the acting comptroller of the currency, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Without rollbacks of existing anti-money-laundering reporting requirements, a measure designed to make Bank Secrecy Act enforcement more risk-focused would do little to ease banks' regulatory burden.

Some say Equifax, Experian and TransUnion are too slow to investigate grievances, prompting more complaints to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. But the big three say other forces are at work.

The FDIC issued a prohibition order against Mark Wong, who was ordered to pay nearly $220,000 in restitution as part of a guilty plea in January.

The Federal Reserve has kept interest rates low to reduce unemployment and to keep prices stable. But in “Engine of Inequality," Karen Petrou argues that its accommodative stance is actually making the wealth gap wider.

The state's Department of Financial and Professional Regulation will reduce assessments by 61% this year because of overpayments in 2020, helping state-chartered credit unions deal with economic fallout from the pandemic.

Titans of finance, already threatened by President Biden’s push for the biggest tax hike on wealthy Americans in decades, face another peril: Progressives are demanding action on a long-stalled requirement that Washington clamp down on Wall Street bonuses.

The Federal Reserve's top supervisory official, Randal Quarles, says regulators need to get a stronger grasp of digital currencies in order to supervise them. His comments Thursday follow reports that several large banks have started offering clients the ability to invest in bitcoin funds.