Law and regulation

A compilation of the year's favorite stories, as selected by the people who assigned and edited them. Picks exclude items that appear among Top Stories of 2013, as measured by audience size.

Banks have beefed up risk management teams dramatically over the past few years. But some are doing a much better job than others of getting their arms around the full extent of the regulations and operational challenges they face, says Ingmar Bromstrup, a Principal at The Boston Consulting Group.

We revisit some of the best comments readers posted to AmericanBanker.com and BankThink.com in 2013.

Banks got some regulatory relief in 2013 as federal regulators sharply curtailed their issuance of new enforcement actions.

Federal banking regulators are exploring whether to exempt collateralized debt obligations backed by trust-preferred securities from the Volcker Rule, the agencies said on Friday.

A recap of the informed opinions (and the discussions they generated) on BankThink this week.

The Federal Reserve Board is due in 2014 to unveil an initial plan to clamp down on risks tied to financial institutions' reliance on short-term wholesale funding.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. issued a prompt corrective action against AztecAmerica Bank in Berwyn, Ill., in November and hit two other banks with consent orders.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has issued a warning on the risks of virtual currencies, and the country's largest Bitcoin trading platform has shut down.

WashingtonFirst Bankshares (WFBI) in Reston, Va., is the latest lender to divest securities on concerns about the Volcker Rule's controversial ban on collateralized debt obligations.

A recurring theme for Federal Reserve Banks in 2013 had a familiar - and highly complicated - ring to it for the payments industry. The Fed banks want faster payments in the U.S., but the larger retail banks want to preserve their investments in earlier technology.

Banking regulators have until Monday to respond to a lawsuit filed by the American Bankers Association over the Volcker Rule.

Bankers have almost become used to the intense growth of new rules in the five years since the financial crisis, but some see a light at the end of the tunnel as the agencies inch toward the end of Dodd-Frank rulemakings and the economy improves.

Interest rates will rise sooner or later, and banks should be prepared to manage their risk exposures, according to a new report from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.

It should be obvious that no one in his or her right mind would design the bank regulatory system we have today. No third-world country's bureaucracy is so byzantine.

American Express has been ordered by federal regulators to pay nearly $76 million to settle allegations that it used to deceptive marketing and unfair billing practices to sell credit card add-on products to its customers.

Regulators have finalized the Volcker Rule governing banks' trading activity, the industry is likely to legally challenge many of the specifics, says Ingmar Bromstrup, a Principal at The Boston Consulting Group.

The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), the country's central bank, has decided not to interfere with transactions made in the digital currency.

For the second time in a little over a year, regulators have punished the credit card giant for allegedly using deceptive marketing and unfair billing practices in selling add-on products.

American Express has been ordered by federal regulators to pay nearly $76 million to settle allegations that it used to deceptive marketing and unfair billing practices to sell credit card add-on products to its customers.