Regulation

General Electric's plan to sell most of its financing arm has been hailed as a sign that financial reform is successfully persuading "too big to fail" firms to break up. But the end of GE Capital just means that the conglomerates left standing are even more homogeneous and risk-prone.

WASHINGTON — The Federal Reserve Board issued a proposal that would make a technical change to its rules governing the calculation of interest payments on excess cash reserves held at regional Fed banks in order to more seamlessly raise overall interest rates in the future.

BancorpSouth in Tupelo, Miss., has been freed from a consent order tied to Bank Secrecy Act and anti-money-laundering compliance.

As Basel III gets ready to turn five years old this summer, recently appointed Basel Committee secretary general William Coen is taking the necessary step of ensuring that new capital ratio, liquidity standard and leverage ratio rules work well together.

The Banking Committee is working to craft a bipartisan deal on regulatory relief, but if those efforts stall it's possible banking provisions could pop up again as part of key spending and fiscal measures later this year.

The cost of complying with New York State's proposed BitLicense regulations would wipe out many smaller digital currency businesses. But there is a middle ground: placing those businesses under the supervision of a self-regulating incubator that would help them develop robust yet affordable compliance programs.

A recap of the informed opinions (and the discussions they generated) on BankThink this week, including thoughts on regulatory complexity, Jamie Dimon's defense of the megabank model, and how vulnerable banks really are to tech startups.

Two House Financial Services subcommittee chairmen are urging the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to delay enforcement of a new disclosure regime due to take effect this summer until Jan. 1.

General Electric's decision to sell most of its financial assets marks the most prominent victory in regulators' quest to incentivize breakups of large conglomerates. But it may turn out to be a one-off event.

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