If you thought the foreclosure fraud settlement was bad, get this: the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the weakest federal regulator in the financial sphere (I’ve taken to calling them the Office of Bank Advocacy), decided to use the cover of the big settlement to announce their fines in their consent order with big bank servicers.

The “new” details of the proposed State AG – Banks foreclosure fraud settlement have mostly been revealed before. Under the proposed agreement, between $19 and $25 billion (depending on California’s inclusion, which is unlikely, so I’d expect the smaller number) would be distributed from the banks, in three separate areas. Overall, it’s inadequate.

The recess appointment fight nominally only concerns Richard Cordray, the nominee to run the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Republicans want to block his confirmation because they stop the agency from gaining regulatory powers over non-bank financial institutions if they remain without a director. But a number of other nominees are caught in the crossfire of this fight, in particular nominees to lead other key financial industry NLRB regulators.

Bank of America has been dealing with extreme liabilities since they made the terrible twin purchases of Countrywide and Merrill Lynch. Their liabilities stem from foreclosure fraud and a huge pile of non-performing mortgages, plus some exposure to Europe’s debt. Now regulators are directly warning them to improve their financial condition.

Bank of America has a right to dump risks onto other people if it helps exercise its right to make a profit.

The finance lobby wants to weaken the Volker rule that limits proprietary bets by regular banks. They find the weakest link in the regulatory chain and ride that link to achieve their ends. And the weakest link is usually the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, colloquially known as the Office of Bank Advocacy.

The White House appears finally ready to make a number of financial regulatory picks, readying nominees to replace the heads of the FDIC and the OCC, who have left or are in the process of leaving.

Maybe the foreclosure crisis hasn’t been fully solved. But at least we have those consent orders on the top mortgage servicers. At least federal regulators will lay down the law and we’ll get to see those independent reviews of each mortgage company and the wrongful foreclosures they initiated. I mean, at least there will be some transparency and discovery, right? right?

We definitely need strong federal servicer standards, and CFPB is a great place to house them. All the more reason to recess-appoint Elizabeth Warren as soon as possible.

The rhetoric is tough: the Fed calls the deficiencies from the servicers “significant and pervasive compliance failures” which constitute unsafe and unsound practices. In Fed-speak, that sounds serious enough.

It’s not.