General

The Small Business Lending Fund (SBLF), which almost everyone has maligned for being ineffective, actually is doing pretty well. At least that’s the claim made by the Treasury Department it its quarterly report to Congress on SBLF activities....

President Barack Obama has announced two changes in the student loan program. Both changes are designed to reduce the load borne by student borrowers and provide at least a modest boost to the overall economy. The new policies follow the...

It’s a difficult time to be a member of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC). At a time when economic conditions would seem to require action, ideological bickering paralyzes the political branches of government. The FOMC may be the only...

Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-Tex.) has called on Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke to release a Fed report on bank compensation structures. Doggett also wants to know what, if anything, the Fed has done to rein in “excessive bonus and incentive programs at...

Revisiting an issue he has discussed before, Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) has called for “democratizing” the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC). The senior minority member on the House Financial Services Committee is concerned that the body...

“The cumulative impact of regulatory reforms now underway in the financial services industry is adding to the headwinds that the global economy faces at a time when economic growth — notably in the United States, Japan and in Western Europe...

Ocean Bank found out the hard way that banks can’t ignore Bank Secrecy Act red flags. On August 22, the FDIC, Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), and the State of Florida Office of Financial Regulation (OFR) assessed concurrent civil...

Financial markets reacted with confusion to the Federal Open Market Committee’s (FOMC’s) August 9 policy statement. After dropping precipitously immediately after the statement was circulated, stocks rallied toward the end of the session....

Dear Reader,
The latest administration solution for the mortgage  crisis — the solution Obama unveiled in his State of the Union Address — sounds a lot like the previous mortgage panaceas, none of which actually worked. And while...

The White House said it was ending the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) but actually extended it. Treasury Secretary Geithner promised that the extension actually would be the first step in bringing the program to a close.

The “fair value” accounting dispute continues.

The fact that TARP is now on path to be shut down didn’t stop the House from approving legislation requiring more transparency in future TARP actions.

The Oversight Panel that Congress created specifically to criticize TARP had little trouble fulfilling its function in its latest report.

Beyond our usual Washington beat (in Pittsburgh, to be exact), the G20 organization sounded off on how your bank should handle executive compensation issues.

Bankers face a three-stage compliance burden in the Credit Card Accountability Responsibility and Disclosure Act of 2009.

Congress and the President are ganging up on the credit card industry.

The Treasury Secretary says most banks are well capitalized, but impaired by legacy assets.

Government subsidies for public-private investment partnerships (PPIP) to buy toxic assets off bank balance sheets are vulnerable to fraud and need strict oversight they currently do not have, the government’s Toxic Asset Relief Program (TARP)...

What if a stress test is so stressful it kills the patient?

The Federal Trade Commission has revised its Telemarketing Sales Rule to expressly bar telemarketing calls that deliver prerecorded messages.