Policy & Regulation

The ability of regulators to seize and unwind a failing large company — the very heart of the Dodd-Frank Act — is caught in a crossfire. Stuck in the middle? The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.

Mutual thrifts looking to convert to publicly traded companies run the risk of increased pressure from activist investors. While the conversion process alone makes it easier for dissidents to accumulate shares, some observers say mutuals are also suffering from lax enforcement of rules designed to protect them.

The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission proposed exempting trades between units of the same company from Dodd-Frank Act clearinghouse rules designed to limit risk in the $648 trillion swaps market.

If very different lines of business are walled off from one another, conflicts of interest and risk can be mitigated without losing any of the benefits of one-stop banking.

From Paul Ryan on Volcker to Julie Williams leaving the OCC, Washington managed to dominate banking news during a week when it's traditionally a ghost town.

The Treasury Department on Friday said it is restructuring the terms of its investment in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, four years after the government bailout of the beleaguered housing behemoths.

Eminent domain is a well-meaning bid to help individual homeowners, but it also would raise borrower credit costs and undermine efforts to inject private capital back into mortgage markets.

The Treasury Department today announced plans to accelerate the winddown of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has proposed new requirements for mortgage servicers “to provide clear monthly statements, earlier disclosures for interest rate adjustments and options to help borrowers avoid foreclosures and costly force-placed insurance,” writes American Banker’s Kate Berry.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development will sell a $1.7 billion portfolio of nonperforming Federal Housing Administration loans in September as part of a bulk sale program aimed at helping borrowers avoid foreclosure, the loan sale advisory firm DebtX said Thursday.