Law and regulation

Higher spending on its credit and debit cards boosted MasterCard Inc.'s second-quarter net revenue by 22.1% from a year earlier.

The dramatic exit of Dominique Strauss-Kahn from the International Monetary Fund and the selection of Christine Lagarde as the fund's new managing director have put the international spotlight on the process by which leadership of international financial bodies is determined.

The Senate nomination hearing for Richard Cordray, who's tabbed to become the first director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, has been postponed until Sept. 6.

At a Senate hearing, community bankers express concern that rules designed to address flaws in the securitization process will harm their more traditional mortgage operations.

A federal appeals court decision, which found the Securities and Exchange Commission failed to properly look at the economic costs of a new proxy rule, could present serious challenges to the rule-making process under Dodd-Frank and put regulators under even more pressure.

American Banker editors debate whether the landmark financial legislation will prevent another financial calamity or merely harness banks with huge new regulatory burdens.

Legal Helpers Debt Resolution, a Chicago-based debt settlement company, was fined $314,000 on Monday and issued a cease-and-desist order of its unlicensed business by the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation (IDFPR).

Even as tight ties between regulators and the regulated are blamed for the housing collapse, former FHA chief David Stevens shows the Washington revolving door is in full swing.

In a flat-fee model, most of the innovative energy goes into reducing costs rather than developing services that customers value.

Heartland Payment Systems Inc. is prepared to pass along what it calls “Durbin Dollars” to its merchant clients.

An aggressive push by the Justice Department to investigate fair lending claims is prompting a backlash from bankers who claim the government is abusing its authority.

The proposed Qualified Residential Mortgage rules have a better chance at harming the housing market than they have at addressing underlying weaknesses in the securitization process. They are an overreaction to the excessive risk-taking during the housing boom.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau opened its doors July 21, a day after this nation commemorated the anniversary of the first manned mission to the moon. And just like Neil Armstrong maneuvered over the moon’s rocky surface, the government’s newest agency might present the payments industry with some uneven terrain to navigate.

A Michigan retiree who has sued more than three dozen credit unions and banks over the surcharge-fee notification requirements of the Electronic Funds Transfer Act has convinced ELGA CU to settle one suit by paying as much as $76,000 to nonmembers who used six of its ATMs that lacked the mandated external notice of a surcharge.

First Data said it would refer its bank and credit union clients to IronKey for software to protect users from fraud when banking online.

Financial services firms may want to be more discriminating when it comes to choosing their battles, rather than protesting and shouting any time a new piece of regulation is proposed. Old arguments about economic impact don't outweigh safety concerns surrounding systemically important institutions.

After years of worrying about the bad lending decisions and illiquidity that started the crisis, we must face the structural problem prolonging the crisis and preventing the economy from recovering fully.

Discover Financial Services' strategy to diversify beyond credit cards suffered a setback as the lender's deal to buy $1.1 billion in banking deposits from Allstate Corp. has fallen through.

A woman who sued a collection law firm for twice attempting to garnish her wages for a debt she did not owe was awarded $1.26 million, according to a ruling Friday by a federal jury in New Mexico.

Integra Bank in Evansville, Ind., was closed by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, after fighting to survive for nearly two years.