Policy & Regulation

Legislation to audit the Federal Reserve's monetary policy fell short of the 60 votes necessary to win a key procedural motion in the Senate on Tuesday.

The agency scrapped a part of its 2014 proposal that would have required Home Loan bank members to maintain a certain percentage of residential mortgage assets in order to keep their membership. But it held fast on a provision that would disqualify captive insurance firms from membership.

Digital and alternative currencies are often cast as libertarian-friendly payment vehicles whose very mission engenders government antagonism. But in Canada, things are a bit friendlier.

Convictions of big banks have lacked any tangible consequences for perpetrators, leaving many still doubting that the government is serious about prosecuting large firms.

Raising capital has been tough for community banks ever since the financial crisis, especially the smallest ones. But a few firms have developed structured products that offer banks a chance to band together to raise needed Tier 1 capital at relatively low cost, while avoiding the regulatory ire that befell trust-preferred securities.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. is using outdated methodologies to define "brokered deposits," stigmatizing stable sources of funding and forcing banks to pay higher premiums, according to bankers and several outside groups.

A compilation of our favorite stories of 2015, as selected by the people who assigned and edited them.

The financial industry is fractured over a Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. plan to require big banks to temporarily pay more in deposit insurance premiums, with small banks lobbying to force bigger payments over a shorter time frame and many large ones wanting to stretch it out.

The Financial Accounting Standards Board is giving a handful of community banks a chance to explain why a plan to change the accounting for loan losses will result in major hardship. The proposal would force banks to record a loan-loss provision once a loan is originated, rather than when a loss becomes probable.

But the strong demand for tax credits from those projects is also whittling down the investment returns as their riskiness declines, according to a new report by the New York-based accounting firm CohnReznick.