The bank has been slashing expenses, but executives acknowledged they remain high. Between having to hire thousands of compliance employees and waiting on the next CEO to be named, investments in new technology or other long-term growth are limited.
As Congress and the SEC were taking steps to regulate alternative currencies, they required a deep knowledge of the cryptocurrency market and technologies. For those who put off their crypto education, Facebook's Libra is a wake-up call.
A bill to regulate firms that give workers early access to unpaid wages passed a key committee this week, but industry groups and advocates are still seeking changes.
The CFPB asked whether 10-year-old consumer protections against overdrafts are onerous or unfair, especially to smaller financial institutions, but banking industry officials largely said any changes could invite new problems.
The CFPB did not file any fair-lending enforcement actions in the 2018 fiscal year and did not refer any Equal Credit Opportunity Act violations to the Department of Justice.
Visa, Mastercard and PayPal may have boosted the single, greatest risk they face -- that of tougher regulation -- by becoming early backers for Facebook new digital money, called Libra.
A recent proposal by the Financial Stability Oversight Council to focus less on certain nonbank firms and more on risk activities would create unintended economic harm.
In the eyes of regulators, Facebook and bitcoin have a lot in common. Both challenge citizens' relationship to privacy, and both use technology in ways that current laws were unprepared for.
Facebook is focusing the initial discussions around its cryptocurrency project as a preemptive strike against the privacy and legal concerns the public and politicians have about the huge social network.
