A recap of the informed opinions (and the discussions they generated) on BankThink this week.

A top official in the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's enforcement office has left the agency to join an online lender in California.

Rising interest rates slowed refinancing demand and whet homebuyers' appetites for adjustable-rate mortgages in July, according to Ellie Mae's monthly survey of mortgage loan applications.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development is charging Fifth Third with discriminating against a couple with disabilities who were attempting to refinance their mortgage.

Banks and credit unions are squaring off on the social media front over a Depression-era law that exempts credit unions from federal income taxes.

Bankers and other lenders are all but begging for more time to implement the qualified mortgage and other pending CFPB regulations, arguing that the Jan. 10 deadline gives them insufficient time to prepare.

M&T Bank is expected to complete its purchase of Hudson City Bancorp despite unexpected regulatory issues. But an analyst had fun speculating about who might step in as the buyer if that deal collapsed.

The Federal Reserve has approved a capital plan that was re-submitted by BB&T Corp. of Winston-Salem, N.C., the regulator announced Friday.

JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM), the biggest U.S. bank by assets, would be worth 30 percent more if broken into its four business segments, an unlikely scenario, an analyst at Stifel Financial Corp. (SF)'s KBW unit said.

The president and chief executive of First Financial Northwest (FFNW) in Renton, Wash., will step down next week.

KeyCorp (KEY) has promoted a veteran executive, Randy Paine, to the positon of president of its broker-dealer and corporate and investment banking subsidiary, the Cleveland company announced Friday.

Sierra Vista Bank (SVBA) in Folsom, Calif., has hired a new president and chief executive.

JPMorgan Chase's summer of regulator troubles has commanded the spotlight lately. However, the problems it faces have serious implications for many other banks. American Banker editors discuss what's at stake.

State and federal regulators appear to be orchestrating a series of actions to force financial institutions and third-party payment processors to stop doing business with certain online consumer installment lenders.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has settled charges against a former executive of UCBH Holdings, the parent of the failed United Commercial Bank in San Francisco.

The ratings agency is reviewing its rating of the senior and subordinated debt of six major banks due to indications that the federal government would unlikely support failing institutions, it said in a statement Thursday.

Independent Bank Group (IBTX) in McKinney, Texas, has agreed to buy Live Oak Financial Corp. in Dallas.

The Department of Justice has dropped a deferred money-laundering case against the banking unit of Ocean Bankshares in Miami, the company announced Thursday.

Two American Indian tribes sued New York state's financial regulatory agency and its head over his crackdown on Internet lending businesses, some of which are tribally owned.

Bank of America and JPMorgan Chase are the latest servicers to say they have fulfilled their obligations related to the national mortgage settlement. The five servicers covered by the deal say they have provided more than $50 billion in consumer relief, double what was required.