Opinions

WASHINGTON — Lending to small businesses in the U.S. declined last year as the economy struggled to recover from recession and access to credit only started to show signs of improvement, regulators said Thursday.

Federal regulators are intensifying their scrutiny of the U.S. arms of European banks amid concerns about those institutions' abilities to fund themselves, according to people familiar with the matter.

U.S. Representative Barney Frank, the senior Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee, asked the Federal Reserve to extend its examination of Capital One Financial Corp.'s acquisition of ING Direct USA.

Jeff Gerrish, a lawyer in Memphis who spends a lot of his time advocating on behalf of community banks to federal regulators, sees a thawing in banker-regulator relations, but says it is one born of fatigue rather than enlightenment.

Wells Fargo & Co. is testing a monthly fee with some customers to offset revenue losses it expects on debit card payments. It said earlier this year that it would make changes because of the Fed's decision to cap interchange rates.

Secure Vault Payments, which lets consumers spend at online merchants without disclosing their bank account details, is expanding into more financial institutions through a deal with the vendor Jwaala.

Wells Fargo & Co. likely is about to experience a flood of customer complaints as it starts to experiment with debit card fees to offset revenue losses it expects from the Federal Reserve Board’s interchange-rate cut, observes one analyst.

Last week, the Obama administration, under the leadership of FHFA, HUD and Treasury, and with the support of the Federal Reserve, announced a bold new plan to accomplish what its unsuccessful Hamp program was created to do.

Are you pushing back when you think examiners go too far? How's that working? One Ohio banker tried it, and instead of retribution he got relief.

The Texan presidential hopeful must learn to put policy over hyperbole when he speaks about Ben Bernanke or the Federal Reserve.