Risk management

Current rules developed in the early 1990s were driven more by politics than facts.

More attention should be paid to strategically preventing and mitigating problems that harm bank reputations.

Letters to eight bank CEOs from the Idaho senator were a rebuttal to calls by some Democrats for financial institutions to cut ties with firearms manufacturers, prison companies and others.

The bill by Sens. Kevin Cramer, R-N.D., and John Kennedy, R-La., would block banks and credit unions with over $10 billion of assets from refusing service to "customers that may not share the same political values."

U.S. banks accounted for nearly 40% of the financing worldwide to such firms, according to a report by Rainforest Action Network.

Speaking at a press conference, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said the bank’s risk management failures have required a dramatic overhaul of its processes.

The bank was fined $25 million for what the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency said was an inability to provide the discounts to all who were eligible.

The Federal Housing Administration is returning to manual reviews of higher-risk loans it insures because it's finding that a growing share have lower credit scores, higher debt-to-income ratios, or both.

Federal regulators normally hesitate even to name specific institutions, but the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency appears to be taking a different tack with Wells.

With regulators and policymakers studying their every move, financial institutions need to put more focus on preventing mistakes in the first place.