Regulation

As new foreign bank regulations push financial institutions to shed risk-weighted assets, companies like Barclays and RBS are reducing their roles in the mortgage-backed securities market. But reduced competition in this sector is bad for liquidity.

Regulators and Congress can take several key steps to ease community banks' burden, from implementing tiered regulation to requiring less frequent call reports. And they should also remember that banks are innocent until proven guilty.

In a surprise move, the Federal Reserve Board proposed significant changes to its stress testing regime, including dropping its Tier 1 Common Capital requirements and delay leverage and risk-based capital ratio requirements for banks with "advanced approaches" in risk-based modeling.

A recap of the informed opinions (and the discussions they generated) on BankThink this week, including ways to make megabanks pay for their “too big to fail” subsidy and how banks can help put an end to human trafficking.

A new proposal by the FDIC could further discourage the use of noncore deposits, including those facilitated by deposit brokers and listing services and even certain reciprocal instruments not subject to the brokered-fund penalty.

Financial monitoring is one of the most effective ways to identify human traffickers. That's why it's crucial that banks work closely with law enforcement officials to put a stop to this criminal activity.

Marlette Funding is set to announce Friday that it has raised $75 million from investors including a fund affiliated with the Invus Group, a private-equity firm, and Navient Corp. The money will mainly be used to keep a portion of the loans Marlette originates through its website, MyBestEgg.com.

American Banker readers share their views on the most pressing banking topics of the week. Comments are excerpted from reader response sections of AmericanBanker.com articles and from our social media platforms.

WASHINGTON — The efforts of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac shareholders to claw back the value of their investments by suing the U.S. Treasury have not elicited much support on Capitol Hill.

WASHINGTON — The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau released a monthly snapshot of its complaint database on Thursday, the first of what will be a series of monthly reports that dig deeper into the trove of data it collects.