Law and regulation

With a federal court endangering the status of its director and its second in command leaving, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has suddenly been forced to shift from playing offense to defense.

Two experts, Tom Hoenig and John Dugan, have very different takes on how policymakers should end too big to fail. But figuring out which one is right is daunting.

Big banks must get smaller. Small banks must get bigger. All banks must turn their attention away from crisis-era baggage and show how they'll consistently make money from now on.

American Express Co. finds itself swirling in the middle of anti-trust litigation and proposed settlements that the company isn't directly a party to.

HSBC, the $2.7 trillion-asset company, said Wednesday it has named James Comey, a former U.S. deputy attorney general, to its board and formed a new board committee to oversee compliance with laws that aim to deter money laundering and other crimes.

Many of the nation's largest financial institutions lowered their spending on lobbying the federal government in 2012, according to data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics. Although data is only available through Dec. 4, 2012, the reports suggest that year-end spending will be down significantly from 2011. That trend may reflect lower expectations for major legislative changes during a presidential election year.

CO-OP Financial Services hopes the model used in one of the oldest staples of credit union cooperation, the shared branch, can drive new digital commerce innovation such as person-to-person payments.

Christy Romero, the inspector general monitoring Tarp, says the same financial institutions deemed too big to fail have only gotten bigger.

A legislator in San Francisco is seeking a review of possible losses to the city from banks' alleged manipulation of a benchmark that determines the price at which banks lend to one another.

Sens. Sherrod Brown and Chuck Grassley are requesting information about the Justice Department's prosecutorial decisions regarding some of the country's biggest financial institutions.

Without a permanent director, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has no authority to create or enforce regulations against nonbanks. However, attorneys and industry consultants say several recent mortgage regulations approved by Richard Cordray may still be upheld.

A federal appeals court ruling last week might force Democrats to cut a deal with Republicans over the structure of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

The state is receiving a notably large share of national mortgage settlement benefits because of the level of harm the state sustained during our nation's mortgage crisis.

National Bank Holdings (NBHC) reported a higher quarterly profit thanks to a wider net interest margin and lower tax and loan-loss provisions.

Raj Date, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's No. 2 who has helped build the bureau from the ground up, rejected the claim that the 'qualified mortgage' rule will push lenders out of the business and said the mortgage industry managed "to do almost everything wrong" prior to crisis.

Stress testing is far from a fail-safe, but does increase a bank's resilience to economic shocks.

Visa and Citigroup, working with the Center for Financial Inclusion at Accion, plan to connect governments, NGOs, the private sector and others to advance global financial access by the end of this decade. Their Financial Inclusion 2020 campaign aims to do this by increasing access to credit, savings, payment tools and insurance for people all over the world.

Mortgage earnings climbed to 14% of total revenues at Wells Fargo in the fourth quarter. Banks say they can scale down operations quickly when volume fizzles.

Eight new members have joined the committee that advises the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. on community-bank policy.

Ingenico SA, a French provider of payment terminals and services, agreed to buy online-payment company Ogone for 360 million euros ($484 million) as part of a push to expand outside Europe.