Law and regulation

Litigation fears may impede industry support for shorter credit card term agreements, even though most issuers agree reducing the amount of text is a nice idea.

The Senate Banking Committee has scheduled a vote Tuesday on Thomas Hoenig to become vice chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency has named Morris Morgan the large bank deputy comptroller, the agency announced in a press release Monday.

Expect more debt exchanges and cash tender offers from banks in the coming months. The strategy is rational and the alternatives for generating equity are limited at best.

With lessons of crisis still fresh, the agency has launched a corporate risk-management office to prepare for future dangers.

The heir to the Hyatt hotel fortune has ties to the industry, but the family's last banking venture didn't end so well.

Lots of ink has been spilled over financial events in Europe, but the essential issues are much more straightforward than they've been portrayed.

Even with the housing market stabilizing and a settlement between megaservicers and state AGs on the horizon, the mortgage industry shouldn't expect an increase in originations next year, according to a new forecast from Keefe, Bruyette & Woods.

Just seven months ago, Democrats appeared to be boxed in, unable to confirm a leader to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau without agreeing to demands from Senate Republicans to overhaul the agency's structure.

Sheila Bair, the former Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. chairman, is a leading candidate among state officials to ensure banks comply with any settlement of a nationwide foreclosure probe, a person familiar with the matter said.

Participants at a Treasury Department panel on insurance regulation Friday offered divergent opinions about the role the new Federal Insurance Office should play.

The consumer agency officially opened its ombudsman’s office on Friday.

New polls find that bankers may at least be more liked than lawmakers.

It costs a bank $349 a year on average to maintain a checking account. As banks decide whether or not to add fees to their free checking offerings, they must evaluate their costs carefully.

Republic Bancorp in Louisville, Ky., announced on Friday that it would soon stop making refund-anticipation loans as part of a settlement with the FDIC. Now it needs to find revenue to replace the $24.5 million the business has made this year.

The Dodd-Frank Act created the Office of Financial Research in an effort to collect data that would help regulators detect and head off systemic risk. But policymakers face a host of challenges in fulfilling the agency's mission.

Keefe, Bruyette & Woods is advising investors to steer clear of most big banks' stocks in 2012 and invest instead in life insurers, credit card companies and smaller-cap regional banks.

Lars Svensson, deputy governor of Sweden's central bank recently urged the Federal Reserve to find ways to push borrowing costs lower — this even though we already have the lowest nominal interest rates in modern history.

Phishing scams involving all types of payment methods are on the rise nationwide and the latest one in North Dakota involves Green Dot Corp.’s MoneyPak.

During debate on the confirmation of a director for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Maine Sen. Olympia Snowe found herself largely alone on a political island.