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Morgan Stanley will slash 580 jobs in New York as part of a broader wave of layoffs underway at the bank, according to a public filing.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has brought civil fraud charges against six former top executives at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, saying they misled the government and taxpayers about risky subprime mortgages the mortgage giants held during the housing bust....

The ratings firm Fitch downgraded a cluster of the world's largest banks Thursday, pointing to trading challenges facing international markets. The banks included Bank of America, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs, as well as Europe's Barclays, Societe Generale and BNP Paribas. Germany's Deutsche Bank and Switerzland's Credit Suisse were also downgraded.

Massachusetts' top lawmaker has sued five top U.S. banks for allegedly foreclosing illegally on homes in the state and for deceptive loan servicing, including robo-signing.

Major central banks around the globe took coordinated action Wednesday to ease the strains on the world's financial system, saying they would make it easier for banks to get dollars if they need them. Stock markets and the euro rose sharply on the move.

Republican presidential candidate Jon Huntsman called Monday for a major financial overhaul that would break up too-big-to-fail banks and deliver justice to homeowners and investors harmed by rogue foreclosures.

Banks earned $13 billion in secret cut-rate loans from the Federal Reserve during the financial crisis, Bloomberg reports... "Many Americans are struggling to understand why banks deserve such preferential treatment while millions of homeowners are being denied assistance and are at increasing risk of foreclosure," Cummings wrote in his letter.

A federal judge on Monday struck down a $285 million settlement that Citigroup reached with the Securities and Exchange Commission, saying he couldn't tell whether the deal was fair and criticizing regulators for shielding the public from the details of what the firm did wrong.

Bank earnings rose over the summer to their highest level in more than four years, while the number of troubled banks fell for the second straight quarter, federal regulators reported Tuesday.

The Occupy Wall Street movement is a big enough problem for U.S. banks that they should pay for opposition research into the political motives of protesters, said a firm that lobbies for the industry.