Regulation

Banks are growing increasingly worried that the failure to stem impending tax hikes and steep budget cuts could reduce lending demand, savage profits and cripple M&A activity.

The market for discount notes of the Federal Home Loan Banks represents an adequate Libor replacement since, in addition to meeting other criteria, yields on its securities are the result of actual arm's length transactions with some 80 approved debt underwriters worldwide.

The Fed had reached the agreements in 2010 with America's Community Bank in Blue Springs, Mo., and First Capital West Bankshares in Laramie, Wyo.

Bankers “wake up in the middle of the night” worrying about data breaches in the U.S. payment system, a Citigroup executive said this week.

The inspector general for the FHFA found no evidence that Freddie Mac discouraged homeowners from refinancing their mortgages to profit from an exotic form of interest rate hedging.

Servicers reported a significant increase in the number of new loan modification trial plans in the second quarter, due mostly to the $25 billion mortgage settlement, OCC officials say.

Goldman Sachs (GS) will pay $12 million to settle charges it made undisclosed contributions to a former Massachusetts state treasurer in violation of "pay-to-play" rules.

By proposing to design regulations intended to shape state laws and practices, the FHFA is picking a fight with the states that will overshadow any economic benefit from risk-based pricing.

The law radically expands the power of the Fed and banking regulators. It gives the institutions that created the crisis more ability to cause bigger problems in the future, writes former chairman and CEO of BB&T John Allison.

Even those who don't agree with all five policy initiatives outlined in Andrew Haldane's paper should embrace the underlying theme: It is never too late to rethink basic problems and policy prescriptions, and achieve better economic outcomes.