Law and regulation

The Supreme Court affirmed Tuesday the right of lenders to use their debt as currency in bankruptcy auctions in a unanimous decision sure to reverberate through the corporate-restructuring community.

Several lawmakers pushing a bill that would assist only one institution - Emigrant Bank of New York - have received campaign contributions from its top executive, Howard Milstein.

The growing challenges that bankers face amid a fast-changing technological and regulatory landscape were the focus of CEB TowerGroup's annual conference in Boston last week.

There are at least three ways to break a bank. Give him a little more time and Jamie Dimon may demonstrate all three of them.

The Mortgage Bankers Association raised its 2012 forecast for residential originations on Thursday, citing low interest rates that have sparked a massive increase in refinance activity.

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency has replaced an order between North American Savings Bank and the Office of Thrift Supervision with one of its own.

Some lawmakers are seething at the huge pay package handed out to a former CEO of Liberty Mutual Insurance. Their response has been to introduce new proposals on pay for mutual insurers, which could eventually apply to other financial institutions.

Banks are benefitting from a surge in second-quarter loan growth, driven almost exclusively by a jump in home mortgage lending.

Lafayette, La., and Washington are over 1,000 miles apart, but Rusty Cloutier, the founder and chief executive of MidSouth Bancorp, keeps the nation's capital top of mind.

JPMorgan trades spark debate on New York Fed structure; Richard Fisher's thoughts on battling TBTF; the CFPB turns to prepaid cards and nonbanks; Barbara Rehm tells the OCC to speak up; FDIC report is inconclusive on fate of lending.

Greg Gonzales, the commissioner of the Tennessee Financial Institutions Department, is the new chairman of the Conference of State Bank Supervisors.

Gary Gensler may have given an unexpected boost Tuesday to the economy of the tiny island nation of Mauritius.

All would be well advised to confine criticisms and recommendations to mitigating JPMorgan's systemic risk. What remain are decisions that affect stakeholders. The bank's owners have already spoken in favor of their CEO, and rightly so.

Senate Banking Committee chairman invites JPMorgan Chase CEO to explain his bank's $2 billion trading loss.

If we had a legal entity identifier in place could we have seen the problem building up? The short answer is yes.

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency has lifted an agreement against Stillwater National Bank and Trust in Payne, Okla.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is the first financial regulator that must meet face-to-face with small business to consider ways to minimize a rule's impact.

PNC Financial Services is changing its formula for calculating some bonus rewards points, in the latest example of a bank scaling back on perks for card customers.

Don't let a false impression chill freedom of speech: Misinformation from various sources could cause compliance officers to needlessly prohibit bankers from making perfectly legal campaign contributions, writes Mark Renaud.