BankThink

It's ironic that banks want to streamline the regulatory structure when their own structures are hardly paradigms of simplicity. Rather than weaken rules or consolidate agencies, we should focus on improving the quality of oversight Â-- and on reducing banks' complexity.

Wall Street Journal

When bankers leave Wall Street to chase their own startup dreams, they're bound to face a lifestyle adjustment. The paper interviews several "Wall Street exiles" about the transition "from a relatively coddled life of chauffeured town cars and teams of junior staffers to days filled managing the books and picking the office furniture." One anonymous interviewee admits to mourning the loss of his old firm's shoe-shine service, while another says taking the subway...

Congress should take the interests of small and midsize mortgage lenders into account as it weighs regulatory reform for community banks. Exempting smaller lenders from random CFPB audits would be a good start.

Millennials were rocked by the Great Recession and excessive student loan debt. Now older members of this generation are finally coming into their own Â-- which means they're also getting mortgages, opening credit cards and saving for retirement.

Wall Street Journal

Big-bank CEOs still make plenty of dough Â-- but the job's not as lucrative as it used to be. Pay for the top bananas at the five largest Wall Street firms "remained well below pre-crisis levels" at a collective $92.5 million last year, the paper reports, down 47% from pooled earnings of $173.6 million in 2006. Meanwhile, the average bank employee's paycheck reached a new high of $148,740 last year. "The dichotomy shows...