Law and regulation

Some of the biggest players in banking's mortgage-finance assembly line — including JPMorgan Chase & Co., Citigroup Inc. and Credit Suisse Group — are asking a federal judge to dismiss a nearly $2 billion civil fraud lawsuit filed by the trustee of a defunct mortgage lender.

International Bancshares Corp. is closing 55 grocery-store branches in response to a new Federal Reserve rule that will cap what many banks can charge merchants for debit card transactions, the Laredo, Texas-based bank announced Sept. 22.

International Bancshares Corp. in Laredo, Texas, announced Thursday that it is closing 55 grocery store branches in response to legislation that will cap what banks can charge merchants for debit card transactions.

Citigroup CEO Vikram Pandit has been named incoming chairman of The Clearing House Supervisory Board for 2012.

At year end 2010 Bank of America had $2.3 trillion in assets, $230 billion of capital, 57 million customers, ranked among the top firms in nearly every major growth market in the U.S., employed 288,000 people, made $150 billion of community development loans a year, donated $200 million to charity annually, and was one of the largest home lenders in the nation.

Months after a Fed report on executive compensation at banks was expected to be released, Rep. Lloyd Doggett seeks answers.

Great Southern Bancorp Inc. in Springfield, Mo., said Wednesday that had repurchases a series of warrants held by the Treasury Department as part of the Troubled Asset Relief Program.

More than a year after the Dodd-Frank Act was supposed to put the issue to rest, the question of whether "too big to fail" still exists is once again consuming the financial services industry.

Yields on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac mortgage securities that guide home-loan rates tumbled relative to Treasuries after the Federal Reserve said it will reinvest proceeds from past purchases of housing debt into the bonds.

American Banker editors discuss the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's funding and structure.

The Fed launched "Operation Twist," agreeing to sell $400 billion in short-term Treasuries in exchange for longer-term holdings by next June to help bolster U.S. economy.

Chief executives of small banks discuss efforts to find new sources of non-interest income and cuts costs at a recent industry conference.

BB&T, which took over Colonial Bank after it was seized by regulators, is now asking one of those authorities, the FDIC, to protect it from a $300 million suit brought by creditors of the Alabama bank's former parent, Colonial BancGroup.

The Treasury Department Wednesday announced a secondary public offering for warrants to purchase shares in SunTrust Banks Inc., one of the financial institutions it bailed out during the financial crisis.

Royal Bank of Canada Chief Executive Gordon Nixon said Tuesday the uneven regulatory playing field among the world's banks is "a source of frustration."

The specter of "too big to fail," coupled with the usual fuming by community groups over Capital One's CRA record, made for a dramatic nine hours — and counting.

A year after the enactment of Dodd-Frank, debate over the act and other post-crisis reforms is as emotional as ever. Top lawmakers, regulators, bankers and pundits clashed over Dodd-Frank's unfinished rules, unintended consequences and missed opportunities at the American Banker Regulatory Symposium on Sept. 19-20 in Washington. Policymakers pledged to balance consumer interests and economic growth, while bankers complained about capital rules and other regulations that, they said, will tie their hands.

An ideological divide in the party has prevented a resolution to the GSE problem, the West Virginia Republican said. More help will be needed from the White House, too, she said.

The Florida appeals court ruling could make it harder for mortgage servicers to use such records as evidence for foreclosure without verifying the underlying information.

Forget Dodd-Frank. Never mind unemployment. Want to jumpstart lending? Fix the system for classifying loans, Harris Simmons says.