Dodd-frank Act | featured news

The 2008 financial crisis roiled the banking system and swamped the global economy, leaving millions of Americans jobless, underemployed or facing foreclosure. In its wake, Congress set out to overhaul how the government oversees Wall Street. The result was a sprawling law, the Dodd-Frank Act, which aims to prevent future crises by giving the government new tools and restricting banks' activities. The law may make future crises less likely, but it increases costs for companies, especially banks, and their customers.

Few seem terribly pleased with Bank of America’s decision to charge its users $5 every month they use their debit cards. BofA blames Congress for passing the Dodd-Frank Act, claiming the law’s new regulations are responsible. The law, which was implemented in June, restricts the fees that banks can charge merchants when customers use debit cards to pay, lowering them from 44 cents to 24 cents.

Major U.S. banks are about to get penalized for "critical deficiencies" and shortcomings in how they handled foreclosures, a top federal regulator said Thursday at a Senate Banking Committee hearing examining the Dodd-Frank Act six months after its congressional approval.