Financial institutions

As investment dollars flood into the alternative lending sector, fueling the rapid growth of early entrants such as Lending Club, lots of smaller online loan platforms are also popping up. Many of these new firms are specializing in narrow lending niches, touting their expertise in underwriting particular forms of credit. Here's a rundown of some of these specialties.

MetLife is asking a federal court to force the Financial Stability Oversight Council to hand over documents that the agency says are protected by confidentiality agreements, saying those agreements cannot shield discovery if they are the basis of a systemic designation.

You'll find many disruptors in banking, but startups like Moven aren't among them. In essence, virtual banks simply dress up web storefronts to look like banks but offer one-tenth the services.

Two groups representing small and mid-size lenders say new proposed state mortgage servicing standards for nonbanks will add an unnecessary layer of regulatory burden, especially for firms servicing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac loans.

Just as U.S. regulators shy from labeling individual asset management firms as systemic, an international group of securities regulators is similarly abandoning a firm-by-firm approach.

Silicon Valley firms like Apple and Lending Club are happy to partner with banks — so long as they get to be the face of customer interactions. But banks may not easily give up that ground.

Payday lending activity increased in California last year, but the size of loans and fees charged both declined, according to a new report from California's banking regulator.

Some argue that nonbank mortgage lenders' rising market share poses a risk to the financial system. But this belief arises from an inaccurate understanding of what is in fact a well-regulated sector.

RealtyMogul.com in Los Angeles said it reached agreements for a total of $250 million in capital, which it will use to offer new products.

Nearly five years after the passage of the Dodd-Frank Act, regulators are beginning to question whether the cumulative effect of the rules authorized by the law are hurting market liquidity — and if that could pose a systemic risk.

Banks may be using credit default swaps to circumvent capital rules, potentially shuttling risk away from the regulated sector in ways that may pose systemic risk, according to a paper issued Thursday by the Office of Financial Research.

The mortgage lender Nationstar Mortgage Holdings is pouring a lot of energy into a digital and mobile homebuying platform called Xome. The strategy could attract tech-savvy millennials but carries plenty of risks including whether consumers would be improperly steered to its products.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau issued a final rule Wednesday that allows it to monitor the biggest nonbank auto finance companies.

Several weighty issues remain on the agenda for policymakers over the next few months, including everything from living wills to regulatory relief to a long-lost compensation rule.

MetLife Chief Financial Officer John Hele said financial watchdogs failed to define what they mean by “systemic” before working on new rules for companies that are designated a risk to the financial system.

The "too big to fail" problem can't be solved with living wills and orderly liquidation. Rather, a structural solution is needed to reduce the size of mega-institutions.

As the first legal briefs are filed in MetLife's challenge to FSOC's decision to designate the life insurance giant as systemically risky, the interagency council and outsiders are pointing to the high bar the company has to clear to convince the court to overturn the decision.