Policy & Regulation

Joining the hunt for higher-yielding niche loans, the asset management unit of NewOak Capital has quietly launched a private fund to acquire nonqualified residential mortgages.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. issued a letter Wednesday emphasizing that financial institutions should take a measured approach to banking relationships rather than cutting ties with entire lines of businesses.

Dumping entire categories of clients is a crude and inappropriate reaction to large fines, says Stephen Platt, author of Criminal Capital: How the Finance Industry Facilitates Crime." However, he says, regulators should hold a dialogue with banks and attempt to accommodate businesses that carry high risk but whose services are desperately required, such as remittances to war-torn Somalia.

WASHINGTON — The Basel Committee on Banking Supervision has issued "harmonized templates" for regulators to adopt in order to ensure that banks' risk and capitalization disclosures are comparable and consistent.

The U.S. is investigating whether the Netherlands' Rabobank Groep ignored signs of money laundering by clients at branches of its California banking unit near the Mexican border, according to people with knowledge of the matter.

The government has added further protections to reverse mortgage borrowers' spouses who are not named in the loan agreement, but placed conditions under which they are ineligible for older protections.

Banks partnering with prepaid card providers face the potential of higher deposit insurance fees and other ramifications from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. classifying accounts as "brokered."

Aiming to address a nationwide shortage of affordable housing, FHA has launched a risk-sharing pilot program that it hopes will encourage community development lenders to finance the rehabilitation of smaller multifamily apartments.

Arch Capital Group is repurposing a subsidiary to insure mortgages that are headed for private securitizations. Insuring such loans separately from the unit that works with Fannie and Freddie lets Arch offer more favorable terms to lenders.

The federal courts have instated a $25 fee for transferring corporate bankruptcy claims. The decision was met with little fanfare — but it could pave the way to a financial transactions tax.