Policy & Regulation

A recap of the informed opinions (and the discussions they generated) on BankThink this week, including the pitfalls of using alternative data to score "credit invisibles" and whether Benjamin Lawsky's successor should play nice with big banks.

WASHINGTON — A bipartisan cybersecurity bill backed by the financial industry failed to clear a key procedural hurdle Thursday evening, raising fresh questions about when or if the legislation can advance past the Senate floor this year.

Almost two-dozen banks in New York City do not appear to offer or widely advertise basic checking accounts, although state law requires it, the New York City Comptroller said Friday.

Nearly five years after the passage of the Dodd-Frank Act, regulators are beginning to question whether the cumulative effect of the rules authorized by the law are hurting market liquidity — and if that could pose a systemic risk.

Terrorism financiers are exploring the use of virtual currencies such as bitcoin to fund their operations as authorities crack down on the flow of illicit money through more traditional channels, the U.S. Treasury Department said.

Community West Bancshares in Goleta, Calif., said that a litigation settlement concerning its sale of residential-mortgage loans will reduce its second-quarter profit.

Anthony Albanese, the top deputy to New York bank regulator Benjamin Lawsky, will become acting head of the state's Department of Financial Services when his boss steps down next week, signaling little change in that office's aggressive stance on financial enforcement.

American Banker readers share their views on the most pressing banking topics of the week, from the qualities we should look for in the next sheriff of Wall Street to overdraft fee regulation. Comments are excerpted from reader response sections of AmericanBanker.com articles and from our social media platforms.

Several House lawmakers joined the call Thursday for a formal grace period for new mortgage disclosures that would go beyond an earlier decision by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Department of Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julian Castro touted the Federal Housing Administration’s recent improvement on Thursday, saying it was on a trajectory to hit its statutory minimum and had recently seen a "significant uptick in refinancings."