Law and regulation

WASHINGTON — The House is slated to vote on a host of regulatory relief bills next week when Congress returns from its spring break.

Top Republicans on the House Financial Services Committee are asking federal regulators to cease all activity related to the Justice Department's "Operation Choke Point" and any related investigations.

WASHINGTON — Mortgage lender RMK Financial Corp. is facing a $250,000 fine by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau on grounds that it used deceptive advertising.

Bank regulators plan to release their self-assessment tool later this quarter to gauge institutions' cyber readiness, but many see it as sign of more prescriptive measures down the road.

A group of community lenders is calling on the Treasury Department to establish reserves to capitalize a new cash window in case Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are dismantled.

Merchants argue that Fed policy allows banks to overcharge stores for debit-card swipe fees, resulting in higher prices for consumers. But the revenue banks earn on interchange fees benefits all Americans, since financial institutions invest a portion of it in developing security technologies to protect consumer data.

Leaders on the Senate Banking Committee are still trying to move forward on a regulatory relief deal, but negotiations will slip beyond an earlier goal to hold a vote by the middle of April.

The agency announced Wednesday it had filed a massive lawsuit against more than a dozen debt collectors, payment processors and related entities that the agency said failed to detect fraudulent collection tactics. By including processors in its suit, observers said the CFPB's move resembles the Justice Department's Operation Choke Point.

The Topeka FHLB's plan to allow participations in newly issued mortgage pools may benefit members institutions and the bank itself – and could soon be imitated by other Home Loan Banks.

It's ironic that banks want to streamline the regulatory structure when their own structures are hardly paradigms of simplicity. Rather than weaken rules or consolidate agencies, we should focus on improving the quality of oversight — and on reducing banks' complexity.

Any banker considering filing an appeal against examination findings will first weigh the drawbacks of irking regulators. This explains the surprisingly small number of appeals that regulators have received in the last few years.

The partnership with MAX Exchange is designed to enable community banks to sell their loans and get better pricing.

M&T Bank still can't get the Fed's blessing to buy Hudson City. The latest delay raises questions about Hudson City's fate and what could be going on internally at the Fed to keep the acquisition in limbo.

If the Financial Stability Oversight Council was hoping for any kind of consensus on whether and how it should regulate asset management companies, the feedback it has received on its request for comment is likely disappointing. Asset management companies, their representatives and public interest groups presented widely divergent visions about what, if anything, the council should do.

Congress should take the interests of small and midsize mortgage lenders into account as it weighs regulatory reform for community banks. Exempting smaller lenders from random CFPB audits would be a good start.

Enactment of the Durbin amendment in the Dodd-Frank Act was just the start of a fight over implementing debit interchange rules. Retailers ultimately lost their legal effort to toughen the Federal Reserve's swipe fee cap, but they are now arguing that issuers offering Apple Pay service are skirting the Fed's regulation. Here's a look back at how the battle has played out.

The Federal Reserve Board should improve how it tracks employee diversity and performance reviews, according to the agency's Office of Inspector General.

Merchants are making a new argument in their years-long battle with banks over swipe fees, saying Apple Pay has locked them out of additional routing options mandated by Dodd-Frank.

An "unexpected" regulatory delay has forced M&T Bank in Buffalo, N.Y., and Hudson City Bancorp in Paramus, N.J., to delay their merger for the fourth time.

Critics say the SEC uses too liberal a hand in granting waivers that allow firms that violate securities laws to be exempted from certain penalties. But the agency needs these waivers to adjust rules designed to be overly broad.