Policy & Regulation

WASHINGTON — The Federal Reserve Bank of Boston reached a broad agreement with the U.S. affiliate of Spanish powerhouse Banco Santander calling for improvements in internal risk management, liquidity and capital adequacy controls.

The former operators of an online payday lending scheme in the Kansas City area will be banned from the consumer finance business under a proposed settlement with the Federal Trade Commission.

A federal court has stopped the operations and froze the assets of a national debt relief telemarketing business that is under investigation by the Federal Trade Commission and the state of Florida.

Nearly 25 years after a landmark deal and two subsequent legislative overhauls, glitches in the credit reporting system remain widespread. As a result, regulators and law enforcement officials are again raising the stakes for the credit reporting industry, but critics fear it may not be enough.

The Supreme Court's recent ruling that the disparate impact theory of liability can be applied to the Fair Housing Act means mortgage lenders must be even more vigilant in their ongoing testing and evaluation of business practices that could be interpreted as even unintentional discrimination.

MetLife and its allies are pushing back against the Financial Stability Oversight Council. But it's well worth imposing additional regulatory costs on large nonbanks if doing so helps prevent another crisis.

While hiring a chief risk officer is a given at the big banks, smaller institutions must weigh several factors and options in determining the risk leadership model that works for them.

Twelve of the largest financial firms provided more information than they did last year in the public versions of their plans for breaking themselves up in a financial catastrophe, but whether they have done enough to reassure regulators won't be known for months.

Wells Fargo and two other companies must repay customers more than $30 million in mutual-fund-related overcharges, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority said Monday.

On top of dealing with cyber threats and other potential dangers to banks, CROs are deeply involved these days in discussions over investing in new products and business lines.