From USA Today:

Bair said that any major restriction to bank policies “needs to be done very carefully, given the state of the industry.”

She supports regulation to require banks to get consumers’ permission to approve transactions that overdraw their accounts and charge a fee. She also believes overdraft coverage should be treated as a loan, which would require banks to calculate and disclose the average APR to consumers. In the past, banking regulators have said that overdraft coverage is a credit product, but have stopped short of regulating it as a loan.

According to the Associated Press:

The US government is warning banks that its deposit insurance fund could go broke this year as bank failures mount.

The head of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, Sheila Bair, in a letter to bank chief executives dated March 2, defended the FDIC’s plan to raise fees on banks and assess an emergency fee to shore up the fund and maintain investor confidence.

According to Bloomberg:

The FDIC last week approved a one-time “emergency” fee and other assessment increases on the industry to rebuild a fund to repay customers for deposits of as much as $250,000 when a bank fails. The fees, opposed by the industry, may generate $27 billion this year after the fund fell to $18.9 billion in the fourth quarter from $34.6 billion in the previous period, the FDIC said.

The fund, which lost $33.5 billion in 2008, was drained by 25 bank failures last year. Sixteen banks have failed so far this year, further straining the fund.

So, banks are dropping like flies and reeling in credit lines…but are also expected to offer payday loan alternatives at a loss when payday lenders are eliminated?  Yup, makes perfect sense.

From Thomas Brown at Bankstocks.com:

So Sheila Bair will hang around as head of the FDIC in the Obama administration. Ugh. I know, I know, Bair is hugely popular in certain circles in Washington, and never fails to get adoring press (most recently, as it happens, in the New Republic). But her let’s-stick-up-for-the-little-guy schtick doesn’t figure to do much to bolster the banking system she’s supposed to be protecting. Nor will it likely speed the healing of the financial system. More broadly, Bair isn’t exactly the profile in courage she’s often made out to be.

From Bankstocks.com:

Sheila Bair is the media’s favorite financial regulator. In fact, she is a disgrace. She didn’t do consumers any good when she took a powder on Wal-Mart’s banking application, or offered her small-dollar-loan plan. And she’s certainly not doing them any good when she pushes for uneconomic loan mods, which will only delay the inevitable. Worse, she’s not doing the banking system any good, either.