Opinions

The agency released a plan Tuesday that would provide incentives for owners of manufactured housing communities to reform their practices if they want to tap financing by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency's unexpected move to require the largest banks to develop a "recovery plan" has raised questions about why the agency is moving now and how its mandate differs from regulatory requirements for institutions to develop "living wills."

A startup backed by philanthropist Pierre Omidyar has emerged from stealth mode with technology that promises to provide consistent value and a degree of privacy to electronic money.

A decline in bank failures and improving stability across the financial industry helped persuade the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. to approve a 4.7% reduction in its 2016 operating budget on Tuesday.

The report said that so far the threats remain contained and do not pose a clear and present danger to the economy. But that could change quickly.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency unveiled a new proposal Tuesday that would detail how Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac should serve three underserved markets: manufactured housing, affordable housing preservation and rural markets.

The recent ineffectiveness of Federal Reserve monetary policy and macroprudential rules begs the question whether the Fed needs to revise recent bank regulations, its own mission or both.

After Wall Street has spent years trying to convincing regulators how they could collapse without disrupting the financial system, the largest U.S. banks will soon have to take the additional step of showing how they can keep from failing in the first place.

The agency has struggled with how to regulate small-dollar and payday loans in recent years, pushing back its own deadline several times for completing a proposed rulemaking. That could be because the plan is so sweeping, some said.

Over the past three decades William Cooper has led TCF Financial through two crises and reinvented the bank to keep it profitable. He also sued the Federal Reserve in the aftermath of the financial crisis, for imposing a cap on debit card fees. For his strong leadership in the industry — as well as his candid, off-the-cuff style — American Banker has named him its lifetime achievement honoree.