Law and regulation

Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi's office obtained a temporary injunction and asset freeze against collection agencies Vanderbilt & Associates LLC and Buchanan Capital Management LLC.

This is the latest of multiple name changes for the company, which used to be called IdeaEdge Inc. IdeaEdge was already trying on a new name, Socialwise Inc., when it launched the BillMyParents alternative payment product in 2009. Then in 2011, the company renamed itself again, calling itself BillMyParents Inc.

Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke said Friday the central bank is continuing to take precautionary steps to ensure that prolonged low long-term interest rates will have minimal impact on financial stability.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. has freed the Bank of Granite in Granite Falls, N.C., from an enforcement action.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren reportedly closed on a two-bedroom, two-bath condo in Washington's Penn Quarter neighborhood last month.

With its new depositor preference proposal, the FDIC decided to skip over the current problem and fix one that doesn't exist — yet. Its solution places more burden on banks, but may save the agency from eventually insuring foreign deposits.

Citigroup Inc., the world’s biggest credit-card lender, is facing rising costs from the misselling of so-called add-on card products in the U.K. and U.S.

Nearly a month has passed since Visa Inc. offered its technology for the creation of a common debit code for EMV chip-card payments — a necessity under federal regulation. Yet it is becoming apparent that issuers remain in a waiting game that could last several more months.

Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., said recent profits at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac should go toward helping build a new mortgage finance system.

TBTF may just be the cool "in" phrase for the wealthy libertine set, according to Comedy Central's "The Daily Show."

Oak Ridge Financial Services Group in Minneapolis announced Feb. 25 that Savino "Bud" Ranallo has been named senior vice president of institutional sales.

The American Bankers Association's new spots argue that credit unions' tax exemption amounts to "indefensible and outdated special treatment."

Federal agencies have the authority and ability to raise minimum capital in a direct and meaningful way, outside of the Basel III process.

The CFPB is investigating whether college-endorsed banking products provide students with a good deal.

New law should put an end to nuisance lawsuits over missing ATM fee placards.

The qualified mortgage rule issued by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau could be disruptive to the FHA single-family program, so the Department of Housing and Urban Development is starting the process of issuing its own QM rule.

Bankers must concentrate on achieving greater efficiencies, stop focusing on short-term goals and strike the right balance between unacceptably poor compliance practices and unattainable perfection.

Flushing Financial in Lake Success, N.Y. is now a bank. The $4.5 billion-asset company said Thursday that it had also merged Flushing Savings Bank and Flushing Commercial Bank to create a commercial bank chartered in New York.

Sens. Brown and Vitter said Thursday that they plan to introduce joint legislation addressing "too big to fail."

The 11 state attorneys general who have joined a lawsuit against the Dodd-Frank Act are arguing for their case to be heard despite a request by the government to dismiss the suit.