Financial institutions

Former Federal Reserve Board Chairman Paul Volcker proposed a massive shake-up of the U.S. financial regulatory system on Monday that would consolidate oversight into three super regulators.

Hillary Clinton said Friday she had tapped Gary Gensler, the former chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, as the chief financial officer of her 2016 presidential campaign, a move that will likely bolster her credibility as a hawk on Wall Street regulation.

The high-flying sector is primed for a correction, industry leaders said this week. Declining credit standards are one of the top concerns.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren isn't running for president, but her financial reform proposals are designed to help shape the 2016 race, including Hillary Clinton's positions.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., delivered a sweeping speech Wednesday aimed at what she's calling "the unfinished business of financial reform."

The banking industry as a whole will survive startups. But many individual banks will fail to make the changes necessary to stay relevant in a rapidly changing market.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau filed a lawsuit Tuesday against the owner of several tax-preparation outlets that allegedly steered low-income clients into expensive loans against their anticipated refunds.

Marketplace lenders are aggressively marketing their loans as a way to refinance expensive credit card debt. And with more affordable interest rates and faster loan application processes, there's reason to believe that firms like Lending Club and SoFi will beat out banks.

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.

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.

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.

JPMorgan chief Jamie Dimon tried to defend his bank's size and scope by suggesting that community banks are just as vulnerable in a crisis. But he succeeded only in proving that Wall Street firms will make the same mistakes all over again unless the government takes steps to disincentivize their risky behavior.

Independent lenders rebut suggestions that they pose a greater risk to FHA (and hence taxpayers) than the large banks.

If the Financial Stability Oversight Council was hoping for any kind of consensus on whether and how it should regulate asset management companies, the feedback it has received on its request for comment is likely disappointing. Asset management companies, their representatives and public interest groups presented widely divergent visions about what, if anything, the council should do.

The shift in market composition is fueling concerns that if defaults rise, the Federal Housing Administration would have a harder time making lenders eat the losses on poorly underwritten loans.

Critics say the SEC uses too liberal a hand in granting waivers that allow firms that violate securities laws to be exempted from certain penalties. But the agency needs these waivers to adjust rules designed to be overly broad.

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FICO and two data partners are testing a credit score based on alternative data that could help banks take smarter risks on borrowers with limited credit histories, but bankers' cost concerns and adherence to traditional methods present big hurdles.

The fight over the Dodd-Frank Act's $50 billion threshold will determine whether some banks get a respite from tougher rules, but it may also shape how the industry and lawmakers think about threats to the financial system more broadly.

The Securities and Exchange Commission just gave unregistered banks a way to quickly raise capital at a fortuitous time — and marketplace lending platforms a way to reclaim their peer-to-peer roots.