BankThink

Women in Banking: Goldman's Gender Imbalance; Barbie's Fed Ties

11/19/15

Did men get more than their fair share of the managing director promotions at Goldman Sachs, and what does Barbie have to do with a Fed trailblazer? Also, JPMorgan Chase's Mary Callahan Erdoes isn't getting on the robo-advisory bandwagon and women talk about "systematic sexism" in the journalism and entertainment fields.

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Why Swaps May Save Banks' Bacon When Rates Rise

11/19/15

Presuming that medium-sized banks that offer hedging products face added interest-rate-risk fears misses the full story.

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GOP Candidates Have It All Wrong on Community Banks' Demise

11/19/15

Republican presidential contenders are off base when they claim the Dodd-Frank Act spurred the decline in community banks, which in fact predated the law.

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Morning Scan: Square IPO Disappoints, but JPM Protected; Robo Advisers Heat Up

11/19/15

Wall Street Journal

Square's IPO underachieved, as the fintech startup was forced to slash its share price to $9 from an initial expected range of $11 to $13. The Journal explained what happened thusly: "Public investors are growing more skeptical of the enormous valuations that venture capitalists are putting on private technology companies." Then there's this point: "The company is yet to prove it can turn the business profitable," said analysts at Susquehanna International Group. ...

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Fincen Should Be Stripped of Executioner Powers

11/18/15

How could an agency most people outside of the U.S. have never heard of effectively shut down an overseas bank without much explanation or even a hearing?

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Why That Orwellian Anti-CFPB Ad Worked

11/18/15

The American Action Network's provocative television commercial introduced millions of Americans to one of the most powerful and unaccountable government agencies in Washington.

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Morning Scan: JPM, RBS Probed Over Mortgage Security Sales; Simple Tees Up IPO

11/18/15

Wall Street Journal

Prosecutors are pursuing criminal cases against JPMorgan Chase and Royal Bank of Scotland executives for allegedly selling flawed mortgage securities, unnamed sources said. Authorities are looking at a $2.2 billion deal that RBS handled, in which home mortgages were securitized. RBS has already reached a civil settlement with the SEC on the case. JPMorgan is being probed on a different deal, earlier investigated by the Justice Department's Sacramento, Calif., office, related to a...

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How U.S., U.K. Are Together and Apart on Fighting Laundering

11/17/15

Recent U.S. and U.K. assessments of anti-money-laundering and efforts to combat terrorism financing show how the two countries have structured respective approaches to pinpointing key risks.

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Why a Commission for CFPB May Be in Agency's Best Interest

11/16/15

Advocates of keeping the single-director model to run the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau should not write off the virtues of a commission so quickly.

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'Macroprudential' Is Just a Buzzword Without Serious Reform

11/16/15

Overhauling the splintered multi-agency regulatory framework is necessary to promote the stability of the financial system as a whole.

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