Regulation

The Mortgage Bankers Association raised its 2012 forecast for residential originations on Thursday, citing low interest rates that have sparked a massive increase in refinance activity.

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency has replaced an order between North American Savings Bank and the Office of Thrift Supervision with one of its own.

Some lawmakers are seething at the huge pay package handed out to a former CEO of Liberty Mutual Insurance. Their response has been to introduce new proposals on pay for mutual insurers, which could eventually apply to other financial institutions.

Banks are benefitting from a surge in second-quarter loan growth, driven almost exclusively by a jump in home mortgage lending.

Lafayette, La., and Washington are over 1,000 miles apart, but Rusty Cloutier, the founder and chief executive of MidSouth Bancorp, keeps the nation's capital top of mind.

JPMorgan trades spark debate on New York Fed structure; Richard Fisher's thoughts on battling TBTF; the CFPB turns to prepaid cards and nonbanks; Barbara Rehm tells the OCC to speak up; FDIC report is inconclusive on fate of lending.

Greg Gonzales, the commissioner of the Tennessee Financial Institutions Department, is the new chairman of the Conference of State Bank Supervisors.

Gary Gensler may have given an unexpected boost Tuesday to the economy of the tiny island nation of Mauritius.

All would be well advised to confine criticisms and recommendations to mitigating JPMorgan's systemic risk. What remain are decisions that affect stakeholders. The bank's owners have already spoken in favor of their CEO, and rightly so.