Law and regulation

Regulators will unveil a long-awaited final rule next week that requires lenders to retain some of the risk for loans they securitize in the secondary market, a critical part of the Dodd-Frank Act that the agencies have struggled to implement.

Unless regulators coordinate their efforts to reform banks' home lending, mortgage servicing and remittance businesses, American consumers will continue to lose access to affordable financial services.

As the Seattle and Des Moines Home Loan banks inch closer to the first successful voluntary merger in the system's history, observers are beginning to ask which institution will try next.

Before regulators require the country's largest banks to take on more burdensome regulations, they need to reconsider the parameters used to assess the threat of systemic risk.

WASHINGTON — Dean Schultz, the long-time head of the Federal Home Loan Bank of San Francisco, is planning to retire next spring once his successor has been appointed, the bank said Friday.

Regulators, in their efforts to shore up banking, should be careful not to sow problems elsewhere, JPMorgan Chase's CEO said in his first public comments since July, when he disclosed he had been diagnosed with throat cancer.

Although the case ostensibly turns on whether loan officers should be paid for overtime, the high court is focused on whether government agencies have the right to substantially change regulations without seeking public comment.

In order to make homeownership more affordable, the FHFA should make sure that GSE guarantee fees fully recognize private mortgage insurance and restore the longstanding tax-deductible treatment of mortgage insurance premiums.

Federal Reserve Board Gov. Daniel Tarullo said a pending measure requiring large banks to hold enough unsecured debt that can be converted in a resolution will be yet another example of U.S. regulators taking a harder line than the international agreed-to standard.

The Federal Reserve Board has published an 11-page guide for banks looking to acquire large rivals.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau said Thursday that M&T Bancorp would pay $3.1 million in fines and reimbursement for deceptively marketing its checking accounts as free.

Wells Fargo will pay up to $5 million to resolve allegations it discriminated against mothers on maternity leave, the largest settlement of such claims ever reached by the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Bankers should temper their criticism of new regulations with some support for reform, lest the American public think the industry has failed to heed the lessons of the financial crisis.

The same broad powers that allowed the federal government to place Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac into conservatorship also allow it to reconstitute both companies.

In a piece on The Clearing House website, Comptroller of the Currency Thomas Curry said the culture fostered by top executives can have more to do with creating problems at banks than individual bad decisions.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is raising questions about the policies and data banks use to vet consumers before allowing them to open a checking account.

There's a growing push to revisit how banks are determined to be "systemically important" under the Dodd-Frank Act, but questions about how to resolve the problem still loom large.

The Mortgage Bankers Association continues to push back against regulations stemming from the financial crisis, as the industry's biggest lobbying group continues pushing for regulatory relief to bolster the housing market — and boost profits for its members.

The Offices of Minority and Women Inclusion should require financial institutions to perform regular, standardized and data-driven assessments of workforce and supplier diversity.

The FSOC must provide well-reasoned justifications as to why it chooses to designate a firm as systemically important — and provide a clear outline of the steps that companies can take to rid themselves of the SIFI label.