Regulation

As Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac continue to experiment with upfront risk-sharing deals, some small mortgage lenders fear they will be left out of the action.

Without investigations by the Los Angeles Times and city prosecutors, the Wells Fargo account scandal would never have come to light. Where were federal regulators?

The new CEO has vowed to clean up the sales practices that tarnished the bank's reputation and cost John Stumpf his job. But skeptics from Wall Street to Capitol Hill say Sloan, too, was "culpable" in the phony account-opening scandal and that only an outsider can fix what ails the nation's third-largest bank.

A federal appeals court ruling against the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has raised questions about whether banks and other firms cited by the agency can protest previous enforcement actions. But doing so may create new risks for firms.

In states with strict rules on small-dollar loans, lenders could see an opening in the language of the CFPB rule to actually hike rates, observers say.

The change at the top of the No. 3 U.S. bank by assets after a snowballing phony-accounts scandal marks the rare case of a major U.S. bank CEO resigning amid accusations of company misconduct. His successor, Tim Sloan, faces a hard road to recovery.

WASHINGTON — Rep. Scott Garrett, R-N.J., is demanding answers from the Federal Reserve Board on whether one of its board member's political ties to the presidential campaign of Hillary Clinton compromises the central bank's independence.

The head of the international Basel Committee on Banking Supervision underscored the importance of international consistency in banking standards in comments Wednesday before the European Parliament.

A top Wells Fargo executive and a former employee painted very different pictures of the culture and oversight at the San Francisco bank during a hearing by a California Assembly committee on Tuesday that probed the opening of 2 million phony accounts.

WASHINGTON — Eighteen Republican State Attorneys Generals sent a letter to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau last week pushing back against the agency's proposal to rein in high-cost small-dollar loans.