Law and regulation

We'll know that the banking industry has returned to full health when we see a significant number of new charters. We're not there yet.

Christopher Dodd recently spoke in defense of the act with his name his name on it at a conference for accounting fraud examiners. Following the event the former senator discussed the compromises and concessions that were necessary to pass the bill, and everything he would have included given his druthers, in an interview with Accounting Today.

Looking back on last summer provides some perspective. What's worse: a $2 billion nick to one bank's profits, or a massive computational error leading to the unprecedented downgrade of the world's most powerful economic force?

Supporters of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau are dismissing a new lawsuit that seeks to abolish the agency as a political stunt, and even bank industry insiders who would like the case to succeed are privately calling it an uphill battle. But it may still have an impact on the CFPB's operations in a more indirect way.

Kearny Financial (KRNY) of Fairfield, N.J., has decided to skip its next quarterly dividend payment despite a proposal from the Federal Reserve Board that would prohibit thrift holding companies from missing dividend payments.

Bank of America (BAC) is the latest bank to announce that it will redeem its trust-preferred securities in advance of new capital requirements that will start being phased in at the beginning of 2013.

Banks are increasingly trying to hire, and talking about hiring, military veterans, hoping that giving jobs to war heroes will help repair the industry's reputation.

American Banker readers share their views on the most pressing banking topics of the week. As excerpted from the Comments sections of AmericanBanker.com articles.

Report finds that smaller credit spreads helped lower the exposure in the first quarter of the year, but the continuing risks from the European debt crisis have some traders interested in higher returns.

The conventional wisdom is that Dodd-Frank compliance expenses are a significant drag on bank budgets. Sounds obvious, right?

New York Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman announced agreements this week with two Western New York debt collectors, permanently barring one from the collection business and requiring the other one to pay $175,000 in penalties.

Bankers have been complaining that the signature financial bill would send their compliance-related expenses through the roof. So far, the numbers indicate otherwise.

A Texas community bank is leading a lawsuit against the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

The California Supreme Court ruled Thursday that national banks do not have to comply with a state law that required certain disclosures for convenience checks, another court victory for preemption advocates following changes to the law made by the Dodd-Frank Act.

Moody's downgraded a handful of banks and securities companies with global capital-market operations, including Bank of America, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase and HSBC.

Among the strongest industry rationales for a national mortgage servicing settlement was that it would break the legal stalemate over a huge backlog of delinquent loans. But five months after the deal was formally struck, the promised spike in foreclosures hasn't arrived.

Rep. Barney Frank joined Senate hopeful Elizabeth Warren on Thursday to argue that Republicans will undo top provisions of Dodd-Frank if they capture the Senate this year.

The SEC chief's ideas for reforming the money market fund industry received a cool reception Thursday from members of the Senate Banking Committee.

Fees paid to outside auditors appear to have been relatively stable in recent years. So have legal expenses for smaller institutions since mid-2010, when the 2,000-odd pages of the Dodd-Frank Act became law.

Homeowners who faced wrongful foreclosure actions due to big banks' mortgage servicing failures are entitled to cash payments of as little as $1,000 to up to $125,000, according to new federal guidelines. But consumer advocates say that disparity is too wide.