Regulation

Without one, community banks will face increased risk of litigation they cannot afford. This could push many of them out of the mortgage market.

The Dodd-Frank Act puts lots of new requirements on hedge funds. Are the new regulations cramping fund managers' style? A new survey says no, and that the funding industry is "adjusting well."

The gap between consumer and secondary market mortgage rates has blown out to a 12-year high, as this interactive graphic shows. Lenders have trouble explaining what will replace mortgage earnings once production fizzles, however.

Committees serving an independent organization seeking to help the U.S. payments industry prepare for its conversion to EMV smartcard and contactless technology have begun examining key aspects of the transition.

Former FDIC chairman Sheila Bair wants to ban the revolving door and, moreover, believes bank examiners should be required to make a lifelong commitment to the profession. Not everyone agrees with this prescription.

While Comptroller Tom Curry made it clear that regulators will not back down from a push for higher capital levels, he suggested the agencies are considering other ways to reduce the burden of the Basel III proposal for community banks.

Thousands of individuals who paid 20 percent fees to collection agency Linebarger Goggan Blair & Sampson could be affected by a ruling last week to certify a class-action suit against the firm.

The complexity of Basel III is irrelevant to 90% of U.S. banks and should not be imposed on them. If rejecting the rules altogether is not considered politically feasible, a sensible alternative would be to simply exempt all community banks from its requirements.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has attempted to reassure lenders that their attorney-client privilege will be protected in any information turned over to the agency. But lender and their lawyers are not convinced.

The U.S. migration to the EMV secure chip-card standard has been so slow that some have compared it to the country's adoption of the metric system. But after years of delays, the mobile-wallet craze changed the rules.