Law and regulation

Annual meetings held by Citi and Bank of New York Mellon have been shaken by investor dissent over executive pay, and observers anticipate more rebukes in the coming month.

Michael Berman, the president and chief executive of CWCapital, received the Burton C. Wood Legislative Service Award at the Mortgage Bankers Association conference.

Grant Thornton has hired a former Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. employee as a managing director in its national bank regulatory practice.

Did examiners get too cozy with the big banks they were charged with supervising? Reasonable people will disagree, but Peggy Twohig certainly isn't going to wade into the debate.

Randy Neugebauer and Maxine Waters don't have much in common politically. The Texas Republican has a lifetime score of 97 on the American Conservative Union's 100-point scorecard, while the California Democrat scores just 3.

A Kent, Wash., credit union joins peers from California and Michigan in opposing legislation that would allow non-profits to more than double their commercial lending.

While by law the Federal Reserve Board must worry about price stability and unemployment, Chairman Ben Bernanke appears to have charted a third mandate for the central bank: financial stability.

Park National (PRK) in Newark, Ohio, announced Friday that it will repay the $100 million it received from the government's Troubled Asset Relief Program by issuing new debt and reducing its short-term investments.

WASHINGTON — The Federal Reserve Board announced Friday that it is forming an outside council of academics to provide advice on its process of stress testing bank balance sheets.

The Colorado Supreme Court this week ruled that the defunct Norlarco Credit Union could not sue to recover the balance on a defaulted auto loan.

Two years after regulators gave Americans more power to manage overdrafts of their checking accounts, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is reviewing bank practices to determine if the crackdown went far enough.

I was reminded recently that the origin of the term vigilante stemmed from the vigilance committees formed in our nation's early days on the frontier where official law enforcement was either weak or nonexistent. They were established for the purpose of providing an environment where law abiding folks could be protected from the law breakers. Vigilance committees were noble and well-intentioned, but often quickly deteriorated into mobs and were characterized by outbreaks of mob rule.

The acting head of the FHFA said Thursday he is “deeply concerned” about underwater borrowers, but that forbearance plans and short sales already serve as forms of principal reduction.

First the Republicans pass a bill they must know had zero chance of enactment, misleadingly claiming it will cut the deficit. Even more absurdly, they then compare the Office of Financial Research to Big Brother.

Supporters of allowing more business lending by credit unions get nods from a consumer group and a group of conservatives and free-market organizations. Meanwhile, a Michigan credit union joins banks in opposing the measure.

To the extent the public is aware of the low-profile Office of Financial Research, House Republicans are working to make sure that those perceptions are negative.

Although the Government Accountability Office gave the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. its stamp of approval for 2010 and 2011 financial statements, the watchdog yet again said that the FDIC had overestimated the cost of certain of loss-sharing deals.

Patrice Ficklin, the CFPB's assistant director for fair lending, provided a glimpse into the bureau's fair lending work at a housing conference in Washington Wednesday.

Nearly a year after it returned to profitability, Citizens Republic Bancorp Inc. (CRBC) of Flint, Mich., has been released from its enforcement action with the Federal Reserve.

Particularly vexing is one bank’s requirement that cardholders sign up for a payment protection service before receiving materials describing it. Hawaii deserves praise for protecting residents from these questionable practices.