(Reuters) - A small island on the edge of Europe teetering under the weight of its bust banks. Sound familiar? Like Iceland and Ireland before it, Cyprus is battling to prevent an outsized and overextended banking sector from dragging the country into the ground. Cyprus's parliament has overwhelmingly rejected a proposed levy on deposits as a condition of a European bailout, throwing the country's future into disarray. But the experiences of Iceland and Ireland show that however Cyprus decides to deal with its crisis, pain is in store.

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"The government is now making a new attempt to cripple the banks. Fortunately, it is likely that no one is going to listen to the attackers at this point," one analyst says.

House Financial Services Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling (R-TX) delievered the following opening statement at today's hearing with Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Edward J. DeMarco:  "I would like start off by quoting from our witness's testimony.  'Few of us could have imagined in 2008 that we would be approaching the fifth anniversary of the placing of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in conservatorship and have made little meaningful progress to bring those government conservatorships to an end.'  I could not agree more.   "And that is why I am determined that today's hearing will be a truly historic one.  I am determined that this hearing will be the last time that Director DeMarco, or if you believe press reports, his successor, will testify before this Committee before we finally and belatedly markup true GSE reform legislation. This I define as legislation to once and for all abolish Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as government-sponsored enterprises.  And two, one that would truly create a sustainable housing policy.  Sustainable for our economy, sustainable for those seeking the goal of homeownership, and sustainable for hard-working taxpayers who should never, ever, be called upon again to bailout Wall Street. "I know this is a heavy lift, especially in divided government, and that is why the leadership of this administration is so critical. Regrettably, they have not released a reform plan.  Instead, over two years ago, they issued a white paper of options and simply let it gather dust.   The interested public has long since deleted the PDF file from their hard drives. "After four and a half years, inaction is no longer an option because GSEs were at the epicenter of the financial crisis.  They were part of a tragically misguided government policy to incentivize, browbeat, and mandate financial institutions to loan money to...

NAFCU President and CEO Fred Becker advanced the association's core principles for housing finance reform in a letter sent ahead of today's Senate Banking Committee hearing, "Bipartisan Solutions for Housing Finance Reform?"

March 19, 2013: Statement of Edward J. DeMarco, Acting Director, Federal Housing Finance Agency, Before the U.S. House Committee on Financial Services, "On Sustainable Housing Finance: An Update from the Federal Housing Finance Agency on the GSE Conservatorships"

--10.4 Million Residential Properties with a Mortgage Still in Negative Equity-- CoreLogic ® (NYSE: CLGX), a leading provider of information, analytics and business services, today released new analysis showing approximately 200,000 more residential properties returned to a state of positive equity during the fourth quarter of 2012. This brings the total number of properties that moved from negative to positive equity in 2012 to 1.7 million and the number of mortgaged residential properties with equity to 38.1 million. The analysis also shows that 10.4 million, or 21.5 percent of all residential properties with a mortgage, were still in negative equity at the end of the fourth quarter of 2012. This figure is down from 10.6 million* properties, or 22 percent, at the end of the third quarter of 2012. Negative equity, often referred to as "underwater" or "upside down," means that borrowers owe more on their mortgages than their homes are worth. Negative equity can occur because of a decline in value, an increase in mortgage debt or a combination of both. The national aggregate value of negative equity decreased $42 billion to $628 billion at the end of the fourth quarter from $670 billion at the end of the third quarter in 2012. This decrease was driven in large part by an improvement in home prices. Of the 38.1 million residential properties with positive equity, 11.3 million have less than 20 percent equity. Borrowers with less than 20 percent equity, referred to as "under-equitied," may have a more difficult time obtaining new financing for their homes due to underwriting constraints. At the end of the fourth quarter, 2.3 million residential properties had less than 5 percent equity, referred to as near-negative equity. Properties that are near negative equity are at risk should home prices fall. Under-equitied mortgages accounted for 23.2 percent of all residential properties with a mortgage nationwide in the fourth quarter of 2012...

Big Banks Had $269.2 Billion Basel III Shortfall in Mid-2012 Businessweek The largest global banks would have needed an extra 208.2 billion euros ($269.2 billion) in their core reserves to meet so-called Basel III capital rules had the standards been enforced in June 2012, increasing capital levels by about 166 billion euros from the ...

Stock index futures pointed to a slightly higher open on Wall Street on Tuesday after sharp losses on Monday as investors remain concerned about a bailout deal for Cyprus which will impose a painful tax on deposit holders.