With policymakers focused on ending Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac’s conservatorship, their regulator is reorganizing key units and adding staff to position itself for the long term.

The two agencies said they will exchange student loan complaint data after their information-sharing efforts had been in limbo for over two years.

The regulator said the investment bank and financial services company will help in the process of strengthening Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac’s capital standing for their eventual exit from conservatorship.

Now that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau says it will scrap an unpopular standard for so-called qualified mortgages, the big question is what will take its place.

The agency has named Thomas G. Ward as the bureau’s assistant director for enforcement. House Democrats have questioned Ward's role as a political appointee in the Trump administration.

In another rollback of the bank trading ban, the federal agencies unveiled a plan to allow financial institutions to invest in multiple companies through certain fund structures.

In the past, the agency cited the legal term in enforcement actions without stating what it meant, but Director Kathy Kraninger has sought to give the industry clearer guidance.

Democratic lawmakers, state attorneys general and others filed briefs with the Supreme Court rebutting claims that the agency’s leadership structure is unconstitutional.

Regulators already finalized a rollback of the proprietary trading ban section of the rule but signaled then that their overhaul was not finished.

The agency is sending a strong message that it won’t rush to end an exemption for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac while also signaling longer-term changes that will affect all lenders.

Director Kathy Kraninger has told lawmakers that the agency will delay the expiration of the so-called QM patch, now set for January 2021.

In another sign of state officials trying to outdo the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, governors in California and New York want greater authority to license and oversee the debt collection industry.

The Supreme Court appointed Paul Clement to represent the agency after the bureau’s current director questioned its constitutionality.

In a letter to the agency's inspector general, the 15 lawmakers pointed to specific cases where they said the bureau departed from legal standards in deciding not to require restitution.

Despite changes by the Federal Housing Administration, bankers remain reluctant to join the program for fear of legal liability. But that could change if it revamps servicing processes, experts say.

Former CFPB Director Richard Cordray and consumer advocates have designed a proposed state consumer agency that would subject more financial firms and fintechs to state oversight.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom plans to ask the legislature to revamp the current Department of Business Oversight and rename it the Department of Financial Protection and Innovation, modeled after the federal CFPB.

Todd Zywicki, a law professor who has sharply criticized the CFPB as an unaccountable bureaucracy, has been named chair of an agency task force identifying potential conflicts and inconsistencies in consumer finance law.

Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Mark Calabria discussed the possibility of having Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac operate under a consent order to allow the government-sponsored enterprises to be able to raise capital.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development has proposed an overhaul of an Obama-era rule meant to guide local jurisdictions in how they comply with the Fair Housing Act.