Law and regulation

Western Union announced that it will reinstate international remittances into Greece, after suspending them following the country's decision to shut down all banks amid a mounting debt crisis.

Regulators rely for critical information on consulting firms that are paid by the very same banks that they are engaged to evaluate. This conflict of interest has repeatedly proven toxic.

IMGCAP(1)]

Two years after a Texas community bank's legal challenge to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's constitutionality was dismissed by a federal court, the case is back from the dead.

A recap of the informed opinions (and the discussions they generated) on BankThink this week, including recommended reforms to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and Ripple Labs' efforts to work toward a decentralized payments protocol.

Sen. Susan Collins successfully added a measure to an appropriations bill that would allow the FDIC, OCC and Fed to exempt banks with less than $10 billion of assets from regulations that they deem unnecessary or burdensome, which some observers said could have a big impact.

A Senate bill passed late Thursday provides additional funding but it also requires enhanced reporting on lending and credit quality from SBA. The measure is headed to the House.

The Justice Department is investigating whether Citigroup let customers move illicit cash through its Mexico unit, setting the bank's biggest international operation in the path of an expanding money-laundering probe.

American Banker readers share their views on the most pressing banking topics of the week. Comments are excerpted from reader response sections of AmericanBanker.com articles and from our social media platforms.

A Senate committee approved legislation Thursday that would offer some protection from federal authorities to banks and credit unions doing business with state-authorized marijuana merchants.

WASHINGTON — Student Financial Aid Services is facing more than $5.2 million in charges after the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau alleged the company illegally signed up consumers for student financial assistance and proceeded to automatically bill them annually.

The debate about how big a bank needs to be before it poses a threat to the economy heated up again Thursday as lawmakers battled over the $50 billion threshold imposed by the Dodd-Frank Act.

Ruth Porat wows investors in her first earnings call as Google's CFO while Marianne Lake moves a step closer to running JPMorgan's future calls. Elsewhere, Lynn Tilton bids to move her fraud trial to federal court, Janet Yellen hints at support for raising the SIFI bar and Obama gets ready to nominate another woman for Fed governor.

The SBA's popular 7(a) program has reached its maximum funding authority. Banks may have to decide on providing short-term aid to small businesses that face delays getting loans.

The Senate began debate Thursday on a bill that includes a provision that would cut the dividend that member banks receive from the Federal Reserve System, a measure that banks, regulators and lawmakers alike are calling shortsighted.

Regulators and lawmakers are wrong to focus on bank size as a measure of risk. A far better indicator of bank stability is the riskiness of a bank's assets, as well as which of the bank's sources of funding bear that risk.

The Basel Committee on Banking Supervision published criteria to help investors assess the risk of asset-backed securities seven months after it set tougher capital rules on the products.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's new integrated disclosure regulations could pose problems for warehouse line providers along with their mortgage lender clients.

New York State's interim bank superintendent is asking pointed questions of a new instant messaging service. The outcome of the inquiry could broadly affect the way vendors work with regulators.

Republican lawmakers continued their legislative attempts Wednesday to require more transparency from the Federal Reserve Board and force the central bank to more accountable to lawmakers.