Financial Institutions

Community banks and credit unions are the darlings of Congress in the financial services industry. This is quite understandable--they play an important economic role in their communities and have a much greater civic presence than the big banks. The president of the local community bank is much more likely to be involved in major civic organizations than the Bank of America branch manager. As a result, a parallel regulatory system has developed for community banks and credit unions.

Kiva.org is the on-line microlending network that
allows anyone to lend $25 or more to individual low-income borrowers around the
world for micro-enterprise and housing.  
Kiva is an entirely different way of thinking about credit and financial
intermediation.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is doing something promising with its anti-abuse authority under the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010.  It is going after credit industry exploitation of consumers, particularly when business models involve using confusing terms that disclosure cannot adequately address.  See my paper on this topic. So I was not surprised to see George Will attacking this development.   We can't have smart, effective consumer protec

While we wait to see if the second Obama administration will do anything new to help homeowners hit by the lingering mortgage crisis (finally replace Bush-holdover Ed DeMarco at FHFA to make way for debt relief?), there’s time to review a recent development that didn’t get the full attention it deserved.