What Do the CFPB’s New Mortgage Rules Mean for Investors? New York Community Bancorp, Inc. (NYCB)

Other regional banks such as United Community Banks, Inc. (NASDAQ:UCBI) and Valley National Bancorp (NYSE:VLY) that have less revenue and similar portfolios could also provide investors with relief from the lingering uncertainties in the banking sector at large.

United Community Banks, Inc. is the holding company for United Community Bank. The firm provides retail banking services to individuals and business banking aimed at small to mid-size outfits. Moreover, the bank’s stock price has climbed by more than 25% in the past year.

UCB also has an impressive record of earnings per share, a rise in net income, and strong profit margins. One caveat, however, is that some analysts maintain that UCB’s return on equity has been disappointing.

Valley National Bank provides an array of commercial, retail, trust, and investment services. But its strength lies as a depositary banking unit. Its deposit products include savings accounts, NOW accounts, money market accounts and certificates of deposit. Thus far, shares are up a bit more than 5% this year.

At the end of the day, these regional players offer investors a means to stay in the banking sector while mitigating the risks of the deepening Libor probe and the soon-to-surface fraud investigations in the mortgage lending sector.

And these ongoing scandals will be more than just another black eye for the too big to fail outfits. Civil and criminal cases are likely to be brought and many banking executives will be joining the ranks of the unemployed, if not the convicted. The bottom line: scandals create uncertainty, and uncertainty is always an impediment to good investment decisions.

The article What Do the CFPB’s New Mortgage Rules Mean for Investors? originally appeared on Fool.com and is written by Kyle Colona.

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