Regulation

The Federal Reserve on Thursday announced two written agreements and three civil money penalties.

Total U.S. demand deposits are around $1 trillion. China and Japan each hold around $1 trillion in U.S. Treasuries.

Federal Reserve Board Gov. Elizabeth Duke said Thursday that more must be done to ease payments on troubled borrowers to assist the still-struggling housing market.

When the policy-setting committee of the Federal Reserve forecasts the long continuation of a low-rate environment, the act of taking on additional interest-rate risk suddenly looks a lot less threatening. But banks that look at the FOMC's stance and feel emboldened to take on more interest-rate exposure than they already have may wind up finding their regulators once again sniffing around their securities portfolios for signs of trouble.

The proposal made to require all banks located within the U.S. to report interest payments to nonresident alien depositors would be detrimental to economic growth in local communities and expose those nonresident depositors to possible criminal activity aided by unstable and corrupt foreign governments.

Colorado Attorney General John Suthers filed a complaint against Consumer and Business Debt Counseling Services, an Orlando, Fla. company that the AG's office believes is engaging in unregistered debt management services for Colorado consumers.

Some of the largest mortgage servicers are still fabricating documents that should have been signed years ago and submitting them as evidence to foreclose on homeowners. Several dozen documents reviewed by American Banker show that as recently as August some of the largest U.S. banks, including Bank of America Corp., Wells Fargo & Co., Ally Financial Inc., and OneWest Financial Inc., were essentially backdating paperwork necessary to support their right to foreclose.

WASHINGTON — Banks are again urging policymakers to reject proposals that would allow credit unions to make more business loans.

Although both bankers and retailers spent thousands on lobbying over the cap on interchange fees for debit cards, campaign contributions cannot explain why 12 key senators switched their votes.

Little has been done to buoy confidence that an economic recovery is at hand. A settlement of the investigations surrounding last year’s robo-signing scandal that, among other things, achieves widespread principal reduction commitments from major servicers, could change that — but only if done carefully.