Law and regulation

The Senate Banking Committee's Republican chief counsel and deputy staff director, Andrew Olmem, joined the law firm Venable as a partner.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is approaching supervision of debt collectors much like it did with mortgage servicers and auto lenders earlier this year, saying it plans to hold banks responsible for third-party actions.

JPMorgan Chase's leaders on Friday rebuffed questions about the widespread problems in their credit card debt collections operations — and about what they are doing to fix them.

Satirical newspaper The Onion claimed that Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke is a big fan of "Pacific Rim," a movie about giant robots fighting giant monsters.

The CFPB is taking aggressive action against the debt collection industry, emphasizing it plans to hold banks responsible for third-party actions.

Andrew Olmem, a long-time staffer on the Senate Banking Committee, has joined the law firm Venable as a partner.

JPMorgan Chase, reporting a 31% increase in its second-quarter net income driven by investment banking, also reported that its credit-card business is stabilizing.

Eliot Spitzer wants to return to New York politics, and says he's gunning for the dual chairman/CEO roles at banks including JPMorgan Chase. CEO Jamie Dimon and others responded diplomatically on Friday.

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

Bitcoin exchange Coinbase will offer instant purchases for users that supply identity information, with others having to wait four days for transactions to complete.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau finalized clarifications, which were first proposed in April, to its ability-to-repay and mortgage servicing rules Wednesday.

Inconsistent calculations and disclosures usually make it impossible for investors to distinguish differences in credit risk from differences in measurement practices when comparing banks.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren and her colleagues are working to drum up support for a new bipartisan bill that would bring back a Depression-era law separating commercial and investment banks.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is weighing whether to change Senate filibuster rules if Republicans do not allow a vote on the nominations of Richard Cordray to the CFPB and six other Obama administration appointees.

House Republicans unveiled plans to unwind Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac that would largely remove the government from the housing market and restructure the FHA.

Sens. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., John McCain, R-Ariz., Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., and Angus Kin, I-Maine proposed a bill that would reinstate the 1930s-era Glass-Steagall Act.

Senate Banking Committee members pressed banking officials about the significance of new capital standards at a hearing Thursday on the Dodd-Frank Act, including concerns that institutions will work around new rules and remain highly leveraged.

The Federal Reserve Board has terminated a regulatory order with Waterstone Financial in Wauwatosa, Wis.

While the Federal Reserve’s exclusion of trust-preferred stock from Tier 1 capital is understandable, an analysis shows cumulative preferred stock can absorb losses at times of distress.

Financial institutions with at least $10 billion in assets knew they would take a hit to their revenue when the Durbin amendment capped interchange pricing. But smaller issuers, who were exempt from the cap, have seen a drop as well.