Regulation

Maryland's District Courts are putting a halt to an estimated 900 collection lawsuits after Catonsville, Md.-based Sunshine Financial Group, the company that filed them, failed to get a license.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau established by the Dodd-Frank Act will open its doors on July 21. The new bureau will have broad responsibility for enforcing a wide range of laws against people and companies that provide financial products and services.

WASHINGTON — Despite his past as a state regulator, Thomas Curry signaled intent Wednesday to listen to both sides in the preemption debate if confirmed as comptroller of the currency.

Wells Fargo will pay an $85 million civil penalty for misleading borrowers into taking out costly subprime loans and approving loans they were not eligible to receive, the Federal Reserve Board said Wednesday.

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency admitted Wednesday the Dodd-Frank Act may be a better guide than the agency's own rulemakings on its preemption authority.

Dodd-Frank missed the mark on the two areas most critical to avoiding a future meltdown. The job of identifying systemic risks was left to an unwieldy committee, and financial regulators remain about as balkanized as the intelligence agencies.

Wells Fargo & Co. has been slapped with a cease and desist order and $85 million fine by the Federal Reserve. It is the largest such action ever by the central bank and relates to subprime mortgage lending.

WASHINGTON — The Treasury Department announced a new round of investments Wednesday as part of a program to encourage community banks to make small business loans.

WASHINGTON — A day after the White House nominated former Ohio attorney general Richard Cordray to lead the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Republican senators who hold the key to his confirmation reiterated concerns Tuesday about the bureau's structure.

Regardless of where one comes down on the desirability of any one of the raft of new regulations mandated by the Dodd-Frank Act, there is no question that their cumulative impact will be to constrain banking for the next several years.