Regulation

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.

Continued regulatory gaps in overdraft service put consumers at financial risk and potentially expose them to high, unexpected costs for little benefit.

ACA International, the largest trade group for the consumer debt collection industry, issued a statement applauding the decision by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to no longer include enforcement lawyers at routine examinations of financial institutions.

China, Switzerland, Germany and Japan are among nations close to reaching arrangements with U.S. regulators to ease the dismantling of failed banks, said Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Chairman Martin J. Gruenberg.

The Federal Reserve may be preparing to fine Community Trust Bancorp (CTBI) in Pikeville, Ky., for deceptive overdraft practices.

The Federal Housing Administration has joined Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in calling for mortgage lenders to temporarily postpone mortgage payments for furloughed government employees and contractors who have been affected by the shutdown.