Law and regulation

A report by the Government Accountability Office finds that financial regulators are coordinating only in an informal, ad hoc way.

The $593 million shortfall in client money at MF Global Holdings Ltd., the broker that filed for bankruptcy on Oct. 31, appears to result from a "massive hide-and-seek ploy," Bart Chilton, a commissioner at the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, said today.

State regulators closed the $62.4 million-asset Community Bank of Rockmart in Georgia on Thursday, the 88th failure this year.

Through fever waves of populist anger including the Occupy Wall Street protests, there has been no sign that disgusted customers are draining the giant banks of their deposits.

Two former executives of Orion Bank, Angel Guerzon and Thomas Hebble, were banned from banking by the Federal Reserve Board due to their participation in "unsafe and unsound practices, breaches of fiduciary duty, and violations of law and regulation," the agency said in a press release.

In the wake of the financial meltdown of 2008, an increasingly persistent attack on money market mutual funds is underway. Present and former high government officials, academics, and some editorial writers have joined the fray, each offering their own approach for reengineering the money fund industry.

Trade group for retail banking adds six new members to its staff.

The burgeoning growth of mobile payments could become the tipping point for proposed national legislation that would force merchants to charge state sales taxes for the first time on many goods and services sold through online channels, a national tax expert tells PaymentsSource.

The Justice Department on Thursday ordered First Niagara Financial Group to sell 26 of the branches it has agreed to buy from HSBC Holdings. The branches are in the Buffalo area and have $1.6 billion of deposits.

The New York banking department has reached an agreement with Morgan Stanley to implement new mortgage servicing standards after signing a similar deal with Goldman Sachs in September.

Gruenberg says while regulators should force institutions to lower their risk of failure, having a "credible" system for winding firms down will help level the industry's playing field.

The casino industry is turning a corner, but the long-term impact of the so-called Durbin amendment on Global Cash Access Holdings Inc.’s revenues remains unclear, executives from the company told analysts during a Nov. 9 conference call to discuss third-quarter earnings.

Federal regulators have ordered 14 mortgage services to help borrowers that were harmed by foreclosure errors, but left it up to them to develop common remediation guidelines. The servicers and their consultants met in Washington this week to try and reach a consensus.

Banks should adhere to high moral standards by discouraging people from going needlessly into debt. The concept of "fly now, pay later" does not promote consumers’ financial responsibility.

The Volcker Rule, enacted as part of the Dodd-Frank Act in 2010, has lately received a lot of adverse commentary. The complexity of the draft implementing regulation, and the clear indication in the regulators' accompanying questions that they did not know how to make the rule work, has produced a new round of criticism. But that’s only one of the problems this rule creates, and a relatively minor one.

Sandra Fisher Martins will brook no lawyerly explanations for impenetrable, convoluted writing. People have a “right to understand,” she says in a recently posted TED video.

The request by Sen. Tim Johnson serves as a rejoinder to Republicans who have been decrying the costs of new financial regulations.

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse has reintroduced legislation that would allow states to cap the interest rates on credit cards used by their residents.

A group of U.S. senators on Nov. 9 introduced legislation that would allow states to cap credit card interest rates, which they say are riding at “extortion” rates for some consumers.

Overdraft elephants are hiding in plain sight in bank and credit union boardrooms. No one admits seeing them. No one talks about them. The less said the better.