Regulation

The inspector general of the Federal Housing Finance Agency has pushed the agency to take more oversight over Fannie and Freddie, upending Freddie's mortgage putback practices and drawing out details of a special servicing program.

A group of state attorneys general is investigating how major banks process and sell delinquent credit card accounts.

"The 20% down payment is not part of our proposal," said Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Director Richard Cordray, in Senate testimony, about the qualified mortgage rule.

Two Citigroup executives are departing after federal prosecutors named them earlier this year in a mortgage-insurance fraud case that resulted in a $158.3 million settlement and an admission of wrongdoing by the bank.

Fannie Mae had little choice but to pay a premium to Bank of America to free up pools of loans so that it could put them in better hands, an inspector general's report finds.

With just three and a half months left until 2013, regulators are under pressure to release a boatload of new regulations, including some of the most contentious items on their plate.

Fanatical insistence on lending to risky borrowers to get them to buy more houses destroyed trillions of dollars. Now there's pressure to make even riskier, unsecured loans to these consumers. A freer, fairer market would do better.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has, as required by Dodd-Frank, appointed members to a board that will consult twice a year with director Richard Cordray. The members range from bank executives to consumer advocates.

ACA International on Monday announced that it has filed an amicus brief with the Supreme Court in the case of Marx vs. General Revenue Corp.

Echoing elements of the mortgage robo-signing controversy, investigators are looking at whether JPMorgan Chase and other banks botched the documentation and amounts owed on credit card debts they sold.