The SEC's mammoth whistleblower bounty offers a reminder that financial institutions should emphasize a culture of compliance and transparency, lest frustrated employees head to the government to find an audience that will listen.

Concerns still remain among community bankers that examiners could push individual community banks to undergo stress tests, even if the agencies refuse to make it mandatory.

WASHINGTON — The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau finalized a rule Monday that will allow institutions that limit the amount of customer data they share to post annual privacy notices online rather than by paper delivery.

Regulators are finally ready to unveil a final risk retention rule, but whether the new regulation provides enough certainty to jumpstart the securitization market is an open question.

John Ikard, a Colorado bank CEO and incoming chairman of the American Bankers Association, hopes to score a few legislative victories on behalf of bankers, who he says have spent years on the defensive.

New York regulator Benjamin Lawsky may use the cybersecurity rules he's proposed for virtual-currency companies as a model for traditional banks. That would subject the financial institutions his agency supervises to the most stringent data-security rules anywhere.

An executive order signed by President Obama on Friday that mandated the adoption of chip and PIN technology in government cards and enabled its use in facilities like Post Offices is a "meaningless gesture" that smacks of politics over substance.

The Federal Reserve Board issued a final rule Friday that will give banks an additional three months to comply with stress test requirements.

The White House is slated to unveil a major package of initiatives on Friday to increase data security for financial transactions, including an executive order to add chip-and-PIN technology to government-issued credit and debit cards.

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court could have a say in how regulators issue guidance on interpretive rules that are not subject to notice and comment, which could have ramifications for NCUA and the credit union community.

Congress and banking agencies should seize the opportunity to eliminate unnecessary and outdated requirements.

Bitcoin adopters in Ohio have been some of the most vocal about how state laws need to evolve to encourage the use of digital currency, but the Ohio government seems to want that change to come from the courts rather than the legislature.

A regulatory report released this summer helped fuel hopes that banks were finally beginning to loosen up on making mortgage loans. But since then strategists say there is no evidence that an easing of credit standards is taking place.

SAN DIEGO — Volunteer directors have many duties at their credit unions, but according to NCUA Vice Chairman Rick Metsger one of the most important is being a watchdog for the CU.

Politicians must acknowledge the unintentionally harmful consequences of the Dodd-Frank Act, while bankers need to accept that the financial system has deficiencies and act to remedy the problems under their control.

Next year's updates to the Payment Card Industry data security standards will give compliant retailers better protection, but hackers will be targeting the weaknesses of companies that don't put in extra effort.

A principles document on corporate governance from the international Basel Committee is another sign of supervisors' mounting interest in how management culture affects business decisions.

Regulators will unveil a long-awaited final rule next week that requires lenders to retain some of the risk for loans they securitize in the secondary market, a critical part of the Dodd-Frank Act that the agencies have struggled to implement.

Credit unions and banks are having pressure complying with regulatory requirements when it comes to managing risk, according to a study from Wolters Kluwer Financial Services.

Unless regulators coordinate their efforts to reform banks' home lending, mortgage servicing and remittance businesses, American consumers will continue to lose access to affordable financial services.