banking industry

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Feds Start Criminal Probe of Bank Foreclosure Mess

Lenders may have broken fraud laws with flawed paperwork

(Newser) - Banks have begun making moves to get foreclosures moving again, even as federal investigators begin a criminal investigation into the whole sorry affair, reports the Washington Post . The task force will look at whether banks broke wire and mail fraud laws or misled federal housing agencies by submitting flawed paperwork...

Speedy Evictions Made for Big Profits
Speedy Evictions Made for Big Profits
analysis
Oct 16, 2010 10:54 AM CDT

Speedy Evictions Made for Big Profits

Mortgage companies like Fannie became foreclosure factories

(Newser) - The Washington Post fleshes out a fuller, and more outrageous, picture of how the foreclosure mess came to be. Big mortgage companies—including government-owned Fannie Mae—had so many cases to clear off the books, they gave law firms and other processors bonuses for speed and penalties for delays. Guess...

Ignore the Stats: Credit Card Debt Still a Big Problem

Michelle Singletary: Numbers look good because of bank write-offs

(Newser) - A recent spate of reports suggests that consumers are finally getting smart about plastic by paying down their credit card debt. Hold the celebration, writes Michelle Singletary. A closer look shows that one of the big reasons overall debt is shrinking is not because consumers are paying it back but...

World's New Banking Rules Are 'Welcome Stuff'

Tough standards are more than lip service

(Newser) - The new rules for the world's banking industry emerging from Switzerland today have some real bite to them, writes Felix Salmon at his Reuters financial blog . In broad strokes, banks will be required to hold more capital in reserve to fend off another meltdown. Banks complain that the new standards—...

Dear US, You're Making the Mortgage Mess Worse
Dear US, You're Making the Mortgage Mess Worse
joseph stiglitz
Sep 9, 2010 2:07 PM CDT

Dear US, You're Making the Mortgage Mess Worse

Stop meddling and the let the private sector take over

(Newser) - Joseph Stiglitz lends his Nobel clout to the notion that the government is doing more harm than good by over-managing the housing crisis. "Government policies to support the housing market not only have failed to fix the problem, but are prolonging the deleveraging process and creating the conditions for...

Wells Fargo Fined $203M for Gouging

'Profiteering' bank ordered to repay overdraft fees

(Newser) - Wells Fargo is guilty of gouging and profiteering and needs to return $203 million in overdraft fees to customers, a San Francisco judge ruled yesterday. The bank's practice of processing transactions from the largest to the smallest instead of in the order in which they occurred is clearly designed to...

Watch Out for These New Credit Card Traps

Banks invent ways to circumvent regulations

(Newser) - As expected , banks are coming up with creative new ways to recoup money lost to new regulations on credit cards. The Wall Street Journal runs down a handful:
  • "Professional" cards: These are being aggressively marketed to, well, professionals. The catch: They're not covered under the new consumer regulations.
...

Senate Finance Bill Could Trim Big Banks' Profits 20%

New rules on derivatives could be costly for Wall Street

(Newser) - To their surprise, the financial reform bill approved by the Senate last night has some real teeth, financial analysts tell the Wall Street Journal . Although specifics depend on what emerges from the confab with the House, some of Wall Street's biggest institutions could see profits decline by as much as...

Feds Open Criminal Probe Into Goldman Trades

Prosecutors investigate possible securities fraud

(Newser) - Goldman's legal troubles are deepening. Federal prosecutors at the US Attorney's Office in Manhattan have opened a criminal probe into the Wall Street giant's mortgage trading, reports the Wall Street Journal . Prosecutors are looking for evidence of securities fraud but haven't decided whether to bring charges. The SEC, which has...

Democrats Defy Wall Street, GOP on Bank Reform

Banks trying mightily to kill restrictions on derivatives

(Newser) - Democrats defied Wall Street lobbyists’ push to kill new reforms on derivative trading yesterday, and got an earful from Republicans for their troubles. Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, and Morgan Stanley have been leaning heavily on Blanche Lincoln’s Agriculture Committee to scrap a plan to force derivatives—which, incidentally, played a...

WaMu 'Poisoned' Financial System: Senate Report

Senate panel says lender knowingly built 'mortgage time bomb'

(Newser) - Washington Mutual made subprime loans it knew would go bad, then packaged them into risky securities, creating a “mortgage time bomb,” according to a Senate report. The permanent investigations subcommittee is grilling former WaMu execs this morning. The report also says the bank packaged and sold loans it...

Forget About 'Too Big to Fail'
Forget About  'Too Big to Fail'
Paul Krugman
Apr 2, 2010 8:15 AM CDT

Forget About 'Too Big to Fail'

Size doesn't matter; the real problem is unregulated 'shadow banking'

(Newser) - Paul Krugman doesn't buy the "too big to fail" argument for a simple reason: "It’s perfectly possible to have a financial crisis that mainly takes the form of a run on smaller institutions." Big banks aren't the problem, he writes in the New York Times . We...

Obama Signs Health Reform Law (Yes, Again)

Final version of legislation enacted along with student loan overhaul

(Newser) - Finalizing two major pieces of his agenda, a beaming President Obama today signed legislation sealing his health care overhaul and making the government the primary lender to students by cutting banks out of the process. Both domestic priorities came in one bill, pushed through by Democrats in the House and...

Goldman's Lloyd Blankfein Swimming in Hate Mail

Goldman Sachs CEO gets up to 100 letters a day

(Newser) - He and his firm might be doing "God's work," but Lloyd Blankfein and Goldman Sachs still somehow get a lot of hate mail. The CEO has told people that up to 100 such letters come in every day. As a result, insiders tell Fox Business that senior executives...

BoA Scraps Debit Card Overdraft Fees

Move comes ahead of regulations, could pressure other banks

(Newser) - Bank of America is scrapping overdraft fees on debit card purchases ahead of new federal regulations. As of this summer, overdrawn customers of the nation's largest debit card issuer will simply have their cards declined at the register—rather than ending up paying $40 for coffee or some other small...

The 10 Best Wall Street Blogs
 The 10 Best Wall Street Blogs 
Feb 25, 2010 10:13 AM CST

The 10 Best Wall Street Blogs

More than ever, experienced insiders are scooping news organizations

(Newser) - Many high finance blogs just “stink,” David Weidner writes, but discerning “Wall Street junkies” can depend on a few that engage top talent and often scoop major news organizations. He runs down 10 of the best news and analysis sites in the Wall Street Journal , “skipping...

Lending Falls at Fastest Rate Since 1942

Boatload of bank failures likely in 2010

(Newser) - Banks tightened credit last year at what the Wall Street Journal calls an “epic pace,” recording their biggest full-year decline in loans outstanding in 67 years. The figure comes from a new FDIC report that paints the picture of a banking industry that, apart from a few top-tier...

Banks Blitz Customers to Keep Overdraft Fees Coming

$20B in penalty fees threatened by Fed's new opt-in rule

(Newser) - Expect your mailbox to be stuffed in the coming weeks with entreaties from your bank, which desperately wants you to sign up for pricey overdraft fees it used to be able to slip into the small print. Under new Fed rules going into effect July 1, bank customers must opt-in...

Get Ready for New Credit Card Fees
Get Ready for New
Credit Card Fees
Feb 20, 2010 11:49 AM CST

Get Ready for New Credit Card Fees

New law cracking down on industry makes them inevitable

(Newser) - New rules go into effect Monday intended to make sure credit card users don't get ripped off by sneaky fees and charges that have long been standard practice in the industry. As a result, customers should be braced for a whole new set of sneaky fees and charges, warns the...

Obama OK With Fat Bonuses for Blankfein, Dimon

Compares bank CEOs to overpaid baseball players

(Newser) - Barack Obama says he’s down with the combined $26 million in bonuses that the CEOs of Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan are getting paid this year. “I know both those guys; they are very savvy businessmen,” Obama tells Bloomberg. “I, like most of the American people, don’...

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