Law and regulation

In the matter of an evening, Tennessee jumped from having no bank failures so far this crisis, to being tied with Florida so far this year.

WASHINGTON — When weighing financial-aid offers, among students' concerns are how much debt they will have at graduation and how much they will owe in loan payments each month.

Joint federal and state effort to probe securitization practices leading to crisis will include information-sharing.

The financial industry's troubles with a controversial type of insurance coverage appear to be spreading to new areas as New York State's Department of Financial Services issues dozens of subpoenas.

With scant details of new plan to help homeowners, analysts weigh in on whether yet another program will help.

The foreclosure reviews mandated by the Fed and the OCC have a better chance of helping current and future borrowers than the state attorneys general settlement, if it ever happens.

For a smaller banks such as the $409 million-asset The Bank of Georgia, figuring out how to use social media safely and legally isn't easy.

The prepaid card company will introduce a bank account with a traditional debit card attached to it sometime this year, chief executive Steve Streit told American Banker.

Citigroup Inc., the third-biggest U.S. lender, will close a proprietary-trading desk that makes bets with the firm's own money and most of the unit's staff will leave before rules banning the practice take effect.

Although the Senate thinks of itself as the more civilized of Congress' two chambers, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Director Richard Cordray cannot count on a warm welcome from everyone when he visits the Banking Committee next week.

If you wanted an up-close view of just how polarized American politics are in 2012, the U.S. Capitol's Statuary Hall was the place to be on Tuesday night.

A review of lawsuits filed against collection agencies and creditors in the first two-week reporting period for 2012 shows that Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) and Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) lawsuits are down from the same two-week period a year ago.

The FDIC has proposed rules surrounding its stress tests, but with rounds of negotiation with other agencies to come, it's unclear exactly what will govern the companies under its aegis. Deputy Washington Bureau Chief Joe Adler discusses how the agency will reconcile its stress tests with those of other regulators covering banks with $10 billion or more in assets.

Discover Financial Services is anticipating a joint enforcement action from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau over the marketing of its credit card payment protection products, the company disclosed in a regulatory filing posted late Thursday afternoon.

AGs and liberal groups that have withheld support for settlement are hailing the new task force announced in the State of the Union.

Tennessee has managed to escape the downturn relatively unscathed, and hasn't had a bank fail since 2002. But a new crop of undercapitalized banks and other strugglers have put 10% of the state's banks at some risk of failure.

The former House Financial Services chairman will tie the knot with his longtime partner at a ceremony in Massachusetts.

One of the biggest changes in modern regulation and supervision has been the stress test and capital conservation standards developed by the Federal Reserve and required in regulation by the Dodd-Frank Act.

A Florida law firm that claimed it would reduce consumers' debts has been banned from doing debt relief work in North Carolina, according to North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper's office.

Big-money political contributions from the finance, real estate and insurance sectors have exploded by 700% over the last two decades, a far greater increase than campaign funds from other industries, a study said Thursday.