Policy & Regulation

Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup and Wells Fargo got credit for providing $15.4 billion relief to roughly 420,000 underwater borrowers last year, according to the settlement monitor.

Confusion and panic. Those are the words most often used by lenders when faced with the onslaught of mortgage regulations and other rules going into effect in three months. Regulators have sought to defuse concerns partly by attending industry conferences, but they have also made it clear that several other big changes are on their way. Following is a guide to what's ahead.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is planning a major facelift to its exam procedures. These changes will be designed to make the exam process faster and free up enforcement personnel to pursue their own investigations outside of the regular exams.

JPMorgan Chase agreed to pay about $100 million to settle a Commodity Futures Trading Commission probe into the bank's botched derivatives bets last year, according to people briefed on the matter.

In an effort to ease servicers' concerns about communicating with struggling or bankrupt borrowers who invoke certain legal protections, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau released clarifications to its mortgage servicing rules.

WASHINGTON -- The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau finalized clarifications Tuesday to its mortgage servicing rules in an effort to ease concerns servicers had about communicating with struggling or bankrupt borrowers who invoke certain legal protections.

In just under a year, Sen. Heidi Heitkamp has emerged as a key player on the Banking Committee, helping to work on a bipartisan housing finance reform bill and championing legislation to provide relief to small banks.

Consumers will have more confidence in the formal system of money transfers once they are given clear information about how much money will actually be available on the receiving end.

The National Consumer Law Center has published a blistering report on debt collections.

Monitoring fraud and deception is an immense undertaking for third-party payment processors and banks. Trying to make them into first responders to various social pathologies is a step too far.