Law and regulation

The acting chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. said it is "difficult at this time to anticipate the consequences" of the possible expiration of the Transaction Account Guarantee program at the end of the year because of the uncertain economic climate.

Georgia regulators have ordered an Atlanta-area business to stop calling itself a credit union.

Sen. Jon Tester, who led the charge on Capitol Hill to delay interchange fee reform, is receiving a reelection assist from Pearl Jam, the grunge band fronted by Eddie Vedder.

The House Financial Services Committee is holding two Dodd-Frank related hearings next week as part of Republican members’ agenda to eventually repeal the legislation, according to The Hill’s Floor Action Blog. Sounds kind of a like a not-so-happy birthday celebration for the act, which was passed in July 2010.

Consumers may not be pushing for stronger card security because they feel overly protected by the systems in use today. But they do face real costs for fraud.

PricewaterhouseCoopers failed to warn shareholders and the public about increased risk at Barclays. The auditor gave the British bank a clean report card on internal controls over financial reporting. We now know those controls were seriously deficient.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. announced three senior staff appointments this week, including a new examination chief and a top liaison to Congress.

Three California local governments may use their eminent domain powers to seize mortgages and restructure them to help distressed borrowers stay in their homes — much to the dismay of investors who hold the mortgages.

A recent survey by Ernst & Young shows more progress by banks to address deficiencies in their risk management practices, but growing concern for Basel III and new liquidity rules.

Even if we could trust megabanks to behave, there may be too much at stake to let systemically risky institutions live by self-imposed principles rather than hard and fast rules.

Nine of the largest, most complex financial institutions recently submitted living wills, plans required by Dodd-Frank detailing how they could unwind themselves facing a failure, to regulators.

The biggest U.S. mortgage lenders, whose first-quarter earnings were buoyed by gains on home loan refinancings, are raking in more profits as record-low interest rates and government efforts prolong the boom.

A VIP program run by Countrywide benefited numerous members of Congress, a handful of Capitol Hill staffers and then-HUD Secretary Alphonso Jackson, according to a report from the House Oversight Committee.

There are legitimate reasons to want to wind down Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Unfortunately, we haven't stopped talking about the specious ones.

Preparing systems for the Single Euro Payments Area may be more complex and time-consuming than many European corporations and banks realize. To ease this complexity, SunGard is offering software to centralize payments management.

The two year anniversary of the signing of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act is approaching and many rules required by the legislation still remain unwritten, according to a report from the law firm Davis Polk.

Federal banking regulators repeatedly fell short in their efforts to alert foreclosed homeowners that they may be eligible for monetary relief, according to a new report from a government watchdog agency.

The Office of Financial Research is not yet fully operational. Critics on the Hill want to gut the agency. Its forthcoming annual report presents a chance to win over lawmakers.

The Federal Reserve Board terminated written agreements with bank companies in Minnesota and Oregon and entered into a new one with a Maryland company.

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency published its first Semiannual Risk Review, a report offering a rare distillation of what it sees as the greatest safety and soundness threats facing banks, including weaker underwriting standards and new, potentially dangerous, products.