Law and regulation

The SEC's mammoth whistleblower bounty offers a reminder that financial institutions should emphasize a culture of compliance and transparency, lest frustrated employees head to the government to find an audience that will listen.

Regulators see reviving a 2011 proposal addressing incentives in bank pay as a way to deal with cultural problems at banks and bad behavior by their employees.

Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julian Castro challenged lenders to make more mortgages, saying the credit pendulum has swung too far on the side of caution.

Concerns still remain among community bankers that examiners could push individual community banks to undergo stress tests, even if the agencies refuse to make it mandatory.

WASHINGTON — The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau finalized a rule Monday that will allow institutions that limit the amount of customer data they share to post annual privacy notices online rather than by paper delivery.

Digital currency startups are trying to reframe the debate surrounding customer privacy, anti-money-laundering compliance and data security by backing a new set of guidelines for managing consumers' online identities.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency is close to issuing refinements to the government-sponsored enterprises' representation and warranty framework that will limit lender liability on buybacks of legacy loans.

WASHINGTON — Two key Democrats are asking the Government Accountability Office to investigate the financial stability of nonbank mortgage servicers and potential harms to borrowers.

Federal Reserve Board Gov. Daniel Tarullo issued a stark warning to bankers Monday to improve their culture and ensure employees are not behaving badly before regulators are forced to do it for them.

Regulators are finally ready to unveil a final risk retention rule, but whether the new regulation provides enough certainty to jumpstart the securitization market is an open question.

Many have predicted that banks will be unwilling to accept the additional risks associated with non-QM lending. But a recent survey suggests that some lenders are dipping their toes into the waters.

The federal government's unlawful sweep of Fannie and Freddie profits has sent a clear message to private capital: There's only downside to being the government's partner in a time of crisis.

John Ikard, a Colorado bank CEO and incoming chairman of the American Bankers Association, hopes to score a few legislative victories on behalf of bankers, who he says have spent years on the defensive.

New York regulator Benjamin Lawsky may use the cybersecurity rules he's proposed for virtual-currency companies as a model for traditional banks. That would subject the financial institutions his agency supervises to the most stringent data-security rules anywhere.

WASHINGTON — NBRS FInancial in Rising Sun, Md., has become the second institution in the state to fail this year.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. told an Ohio bank early last year that doing business with payday lenders is generally unacceptable, according to a letter released Friday by House Republicans.

Changes to representation and warranty contract are also expected to be announced MBA annual convention.

Mortgage lenders are threatening to halt lending on condominiums in Nevada after the state Supreme Court upheld a law allowing homeowners associations to foreclose ahead of first mortgage holders.

President Obama may be one of the most powerful men in the world, but he's not immune from the frustrations of having a credit card declined.

An executive order signed by President Obama on Friday that mandated the adoption of chip and PIN technology in government cards and enabled its use in facilities like Post Offices is a "meaningless gesture" that smacks of politics over substance.