Policy & Regulation

Florida bank-buyer Bond Street Holdings bulked up on failure deals, took a 19-month break and has returned to M&A with the aim of $5 billion in assets by yearend.

Proponents of breaking up big banks trumpet Attorney General Eric Holder's complaint that some are too large to prosecute. But indicting companies for individual employees' actions would indeed be reckless.

Sens. Sherrod Brown, a liberal from Ohio, and David Vitter, a conservative from Louisiana, are an unlikely pair. But they have forged a working alliance and are committed to raising capital requirements on the biggest banks and reducing their size.

The nonexistence of "too big to fail" is swell news. Now taxpayers can stop worrying about future bailouts, the Federal Reserve can ease monetary policy and the Justice Department can prosecute the banks purportedly "too big to jail."

Community bankers should be more concerned about interest rate risk, mortgage rules and examiner's questions about strategic direction than anything the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau might do, regulators say.

Even if regulators restrict banks' ability to charge overdraft fees, those consumers who value banks that cover their overdrafts will find a way to reward institutions providing the best service.

State regulators in Georgia Friday closed the $259 million-asset Frontier Bank in LaGrange, the fourth institution to fail this year.

Bankers are bracing for the start of more severe anti-money laundering exams as regulators rework their standards and prepare to issue another round of guidance tackling the issue.

The Financial Services Roundtable last week announced the hiring of Eric Hoplin to be the group's vice president of communications and organizational strategy.

Firms have continued to plow money into bank deposits, but high liquidity ratios appear to be more a continuation of trends in place since the 1980s than a reaction to the financial crisis.