Regulation

A former chief financial officer at Cooperative Bank in Roslindale, Mass., has filed a whistle-blower lawsuit against the mutual thrift, alleging he was fired after complaining about conflicts and mismanagement.

Westamerica Bancorp. probably expected little trouble when it asked for regulatory permission to close a small branch in northern California. Wrong! Welcome to the world of online petitions and social media.

Frank Hamlin, CEO of Canandaigua National, suggested in a recent letter to shareholders that N.Y. Attorney General Eric Schneiderman's cases against Financial Institutions Inc. and Evans Bancorp were politically motivated.

A top Justice Department prosecutor said the U.S. is prepared to punish banks for violating criminal settlements, an unprecedented move designed to crack down on repeat offenders.

A recent Supreme Court decision means that one exemption to the Fair Labor Standards Act does not apply to mortgage salespeople, but their employers might still be able to take advantage of other exemptions.

Bipartisan legislation introduced in the Senate this week would make it easier for consumers to secure financing to purchase manufactured housing.

Ed DeMarco, the former chief regulator of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, warned that efforts under the Obama administration to expand access to credit could risk repeating mistakes that led up to the crisis.

A recap of the informed opinions (and the discussions they generated) on BankThink this week, including the benefits of regulating banks by complexity rather than size and how to make the Fed's stress tests more effective.

Bankers were jolted last month by an updated Office of the Comptroller of the Currency supervision handbook that suggested a major shift in how examiners view overdraft regulation.

Informing banks about the details of stress-test requirements in advance would help mitigate financial institutions' unnecessary costs. And conducting the tests on a quarterly basis would ensure that banks are unable to game the system.