Ian McKendry

Financial regulation is too complex and needs to be retooled to improve access to credit, President Trump’s nominees to two top banking regulators told Capitol Hill on Thursday.

Fed Vice Chair-nominee Randal Quarles will likely face questions about his support for small banks, while Comptroller-nominee Joseph Otting must face fallout from his predecessor.

The House voted 231 to 190 on Tuesday to nullify the CFPB's rule banning mandatory arbitration clauses, but the outcome in Senate is unclear.

The discounts that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac used to offer large originators for selling them bulk bundles of mortgages continue to haunt small lenders, who worry a new housing finance system could revive the practice.

House and Senate lawmakers formally filed resolutions on Thursday to repeal the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's arbitration rule, but there were early signs that enacting them may prove challenging.

Most U.S. voters, including those who identify as Republicans, support the Dodd-Frank financial reform law and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, according to a poll conducted in late June.

House lawmakers including Jeb Hensarling are preparing to move on a series of targeted regulatory relief bills in an effort to give Senate Banking Committee Chairman Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, more leeway when he tries to craft a relief measure.

With the ink barely dry on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's final arbitration rule, defenders and critics of the rule were already girding for a congressional fight over its ultimate fate.

Both parties appear interested in a deal on housing finance reform, but tough fights are ahead.

The Senate is set to begin teeing up housing finance reform discussions at a Banking Committee hearing on Thursday, but many are skeptical that Congress will be able to succeed where it has failed in the past.