Law and regulation

The National Fair Housing Alliance is accusing big banks of racial bias for neglecting homes they've foreclosed on in minority neighborhoods. Bankers deny the charges but are anxious to avoid a public fight with a nonprofit that's closely tied to the Department of Housing and Urban Development. American Banker staffers discuss.

Two Washington law firms that specialize in advising financial institutions have agreed to merge.

The founding CEO of Bank of Bird-in-Hand was told by regulators that his group's "thorough" vetting would be the norm going forward.

Ignoring the effects of loan seller origination, sourcing, and servicing processes in a post-GSE secondary market could generate losses for taxpayers.

With a goal of speeding up delivery of Near Field Communication-enabled handsets, China Mobile Limited has purchased EMV chip-card testing capabilities from Fime, as well as received a license to begin operating a new, fourth-generation wireless network.

They are inching closer to complying with the $25 billion national settlement but the latest report from monitor Joseph Smith has found that there is still a little more work to be done.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has taken a cautious approach to its oversight of payday lenders so far, but is likely to issue new regulations covering the industry next year, according to several observers.

There’s a reason most Americans still like their local banks, even if they detest the megabanks after the financial crisis.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the Federal Reserve Board and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. all announced plans to hold public board meetings on Dec. 10 to vote on a final Volcker Rule.

Frustrated by the lack of new banking charters, two banking trade groups are urging the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. to relax restrictions on startup institutions.

In the end, we will once again have a system that looks suspiciously like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac redux, with a housing bubble, a mortgage meltdown and a financial crisis.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development is a rare government agency that funds private enforcement of its own regulations. It does so via its Fair Housing Initiatives Program, which offers grants to nonprofits to carry out the work.

The National Fair Housing Alliance's claims that banks have failed to maintain homes in minority neighborhoods are based on shaky factual and legal ground. However, alliances between the nonprofit and its allies in government may leave bankers with little choice but to settle.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.'s history, structure and effectiveness during the financial crisis have helped guide the discussion of housing finance reform, inspiring Senate lawmakers to push an FDIC-like system for the mortgage industry.

Banking regulators appeared on course Tuesday to vote on a final rule to ban proprietary trading at U.S. financial institutions ahead of a year-end deadline.

Former Washington Mutual Chief Executive Officer Kerry Killinger and two other bank officials are in settlement talks with the OCC, the last chapter in the government's probe of the largest U.S. bank failure.

Most systemically important financial institutions are publicly traded, so they’d have to immediately disclose any orders from the Fed to curb systemic risk. Their securities would get hammered. Thus, Fed supervision is a strong incentive to operate safely.

Carolina Premier Bank in Charlotte, N.C., is planning to swap its state charter for a national bank charter and change its name.

The Federal Reserve Board has lifted enforcement actions against Parkway Bancorp in Harwood Heights, Ill., and Peoples Inc. in Lawrence, Kan.

A Volcker Rule limiting investment in securities used primarily for customer transactions to 10% of the firm’s revenue is simple for banks to understand and easy for regulators to enforce.