Regulation

American Banker's front-page story lays out the details of how the financial regulatory reform bill, now at a critical juncture in House-Senate conference committee, would change the banking and retail investment management industries: http://www.americanbanker.com/issues/175_117/senate-financial-reform-1021072-1.html

House and Senate conferees meeting to hammer out a financial regulatory reform bill appear to have reached an agreement that would allow the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board to regulate financial advisers and other market intermediaries.

Neither criminal prosecutors nor the SEC ever filed charges against AIG or any executives.

The House approved a bill 241 to 182 on Thursday that would create a $30 billion fund that community banks could access for small business loans.

After a heated debate, the regulatory reform conference committee agreed late Thursday to scale back a provision of the bill that would eliminate the use of trust-preferred securities as Tier 1 capital.

The Securities and Exchange Commission is stepping up its enforcement efforts in the municipal securities market for the first time in more than a decade, with a staff of roughly 30 attorneys charged with investigating and trying muni and public pension fund cases.

The Securities and Exchange Commission Wednesday accused the former owner of Taylor Bean & Whitaker with orchestrating a massive equity and MBS fraud tied to his firm's warehouse borrowings from Colonial Bank, a depository it tried to take control of last summer using Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) money.

Regulatory reform conferees tussled Wednesday over provisions that would allow the Government Accountability Office more power to audit the Federal Reserve Board, give shareholders a nonbinding vote on compensation and strengthen investor protections.

Proponents of the fiduciary standard for all financial advisors will be watching the House-Senate conference committee very closely Wednesday, when the group will begin to consider whether to include the requirement in the financial regulatory reform bill.

The SEC will also require glidepath graphics and asset allocation taglines in advertisements—a new twist for funds that really aren’t as easy as they look.