Regulation

More investigation as to how a uniform fiduciary standard would affect consumers and the market is needed, a group of House lawmakers said in a letter to the SEC.

Securities and Exchange Commission officials are urging market participants to provide their views about the muni industry and how it can be improved, after the SEC was forced by budget cuts to suspend a series of field hearings that were to be held around the country.

Bankers are divided over the seriousness of a provision in the Dodd-Frank Act that would repeal Regulation Q and allow banks to pay rates for demand deposits.

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority is developing a system that will tell its examiners and firms’ compliance officials whether firms that sold munis with material-event disclosures passed that information on to customers.

Although Sheila Bair and the ABA have often been at loggerheads over regulatory reform, the distance between them was never more apparent than during her last address to the group.

Two top Obama administration officials said Tuesday that the government-sponsored enterprises would not be exempted from a pending proposal to help standardize mortgages sold into the secondary market.

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority has fined Dallas-based financial services company Southwest Securities Inc. $500,000 for soliciting violations related to its municipal securities business.

House Ways and Means Committee Democrats introduced a bill on Thursday that would reinstate Build America Bonds, the higher small-issuer limit for bank-qualified bonds, and six other bond, tax credit and loan guarantee programs.

Empowering the SEC to adequately monitor markets would help restore some faith in the U.S. capital markets, according to the industry group.

The MICG Investment Management of Newport News, Va., and barred its chief executive and majority owner, Jeffrey A. Martinovich, from the securities industry.The move, signaled in February and announced Thursday, follows what the independent regulator of brokers said was misuse of a hedge fund, for personal enrichment of Martinovich and general enrichment of the company.