US non-bank lender Quicken Loans, which promises Americans can be approved for a "Rocket Mortgage" home loan on their mobile phone in as little as eight minutes, has replaced Wells Fargo as the top US retail mortgage lender, reports the FT. Quicken made US$25.1 billion of loans directly to mortgage borrowers in the last three months of 2017 compared with US$22.9 billion by Wells. Wells Fargo is unlikely to close the gap, thanks to the restrictions imposed by the Fed on the bank expanding its balance sheet as punishment "years of wrongdoing," the FT adds. In the first punishment of its kind, the Federal Reserve (in an order issued just before the end of Janet Yellen's term) has banned Wells Fargo from expanding its overall balance sheet beyond US$2 trillion without prior regulatory approval, the FT reports. The asset freeze is the regulator's response to what it called "widespread consumer abuses", including the bogus customer accounts created by employees under pressure to hit sales targets. The bank is expected to have to "turn away billions of dollars of deposits" as a result of the freeze.  The newly appointed head of discipline at China's central bank, former provincial head of police Xu Jia'ai, said the 'cat and rat' league of colluding financial industry regulators and industry wrongdoers posed a significant risk, reports the South China Morning Post. Xu's appointment has been seen as a likely precursor to widespread changes within China's financial system, including strengthening the role of the Communist Party in financial affairs. He made it clear that controls over the financial regulatory framework, and the officials working for them, would be tightened, the SCMO reports.