Regulatory reform

The Senate is poised to pass the most substantial bank regulatory relief since the crisis, but any disruption of the post-crisis regime is still eclipsed by how much the bill enshrines Dodd-Frank.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., filed a motion on the Senate floor Thursday setting up a potential vote next week on the bipartisan regulatory relief package.

The legislation carves out protections for smaller banks to offer abusive loans to borrowers under the "qualified mortgage" standard, as long as they hold those loans in portfolio.

Democrats used a hearing with Fed Chair Jerome Powell to lay the groundwork for an intraparty debate over the merits of the Senate’s regulatory relief bill.

The interim head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau said the agency may allow prudential regulators to take the lead on more supervisory matters to cut down on duplication.

“Why we think we know better or how to protect consumers in your state surprises me,” acting CFPB Director Mick Mulvaney told a group of state attorneys general. “I don’t think we’ll being do much of that anymore.”

Banking Committee Chairman Mike Crapo said he is hopeful that a bipartisan deal to roll back certain Dodd-Frank Act regulations will soon have a vote on the Senate floor.

Acting CFPB Director Mick Mulvaney dismissed concerns by Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., about his leadership of the consumer agency while supporting a lighter regulatory touch for credit unions.

Credit union executives talked up a pending regulatory relief effort while endorsing a radical shift in direction by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau during a meeting with President Trump and other top White House officials on Monday.

Credit unions favor housing finance reforms that would keep the government-sponsored enterprises or something similar in place, but add an explicit government guarantee to their mortgage-backed securities, according to a recent survey.

House Chief Deputy Whip Patrick McHenry, R-N.C., said House lawmakers are having discussions with the Senate about ways to go further on rolling back Dodd-Frank before the Senate is expected to hold a floor vote.

As a bipartisan regulatory relief bill approaches the finish line in the Senate, the House has mostly stood on the sidelines. But no one expects the lower chamber to just rubber-stamp the deal.

The war of words between acting Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Director Mick Mulvaney and Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., the agency's architect, is escalating.

Commenting on the consumer bureau’s enforcement practices as part of a CFPB review could help shape regulatory reforms, but it could also draw attention to a firm’s run-in with the agency.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is seeking comment on how to engage the public in field hearings and town hall meetings as part of a broad review of all of the bureau's processes.

The Supreme Court dealt hedge funds and other big investors a blow Tuesday by refusing to revive core parts of lawsuits that challenged the federal government’s capture of billions of dollars in profits generated by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

As the debate over housing reform heats up, policymakers should give careful consideration to a plan that recapitalizes the government-sponsored enterprises.

Freddie Mac posted a fourth-quarter net loss of $3.3 billion and will request $312 million from the Treasury after recent tax reform legislation forced it to write down the value of deferred tax assets.

Despite a legislative push by some senators and other stakeholders to jump-start housing finance reform, efforts to form consensus over a bill once again are stuck in neutral.

Acting Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Director Mick Mulvaney is discarding many of the policies of his predecessor but none as important perhaps as the agency's targeting of "unfair, deceptive or abusive acts or practices."