Regulation

Sens. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, and Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., urged regulators on Wednesday to tighten restrictions on banks involved in physical commodities markets.

Bank of America Corp. is paying $950 million to settle claims that its Countrywide unit pooled faulty mortgages into securities that helped hobble Financial Guaranty Insurance Co. and saddled buyers with losses.

Demand for loans by consumers and businesses grew in the first quarter, according to a Federal Reserve report released Wednesday.

The Obama administration is urging activists like the National Council of La Raza to support legislation to overhaul the housing finance market, ahead of a Senate Banking Committee vote scheduled for late April.

A poor showing for a bank in the Dodd-Frank stress test would need to be reflected in a counterparty bank's internal rating system, potentially restricting the bank's access to market liquidity.

The moves are part of a recent trend of banks exiting businesses that they believe have fallen out of favor with regulators.

U.S. banks today are safer, sounder, more secure, transparent, accountable and are performing their critical roles in the global economy.

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency is likely to make changes to its proposal outlining the "heightened expectations" the largest banks must face after the industry raised concerns that certain provisions could backfire.

The most notable quotes from American Banker stories of the previous week. Readers are encouraged to add their own observations in the Comments fields at the bottom of each slide.

Banks need to take fewer risks and hold more capital, but recent regulations, including the Volcker rule, are "not cost-effective" for banks and "too expensive for the potential benefits." That's bank critic Anat Admati, the Stanford finance professor and co-author of "The Bankers' New Clothes," who also discusses big banks' corporate governance and recent probes into high-frequency trading.