BankThink

Wall Street Journal

Federal prosecutors and New York's top banking cop have contacted at least 10 banks for questioning on whether they should have alerted authorities about suspicious money transfers involving FIFA, soccer's world governing body. The U.S. Attorney's office in Brooklyn and has contacted Delta National Bank & Trust in New York, HSBC and Standard Chartered, unnamed sources said. At least three other "major" international banks have also been contacted by the U.S. Attorney but...

Regulators and lawmakers are wrong to focus on bank size as a measure of risk. A far better indicator of bank stability is the riskiness of a bank's assets, as well as which of the bank's sources of funding bear that risk.

Receiving Wide Coverage ...

B of A Deck Shuffling: Brian Moynihan is playing musical chairs again. Bank of America's chief executive made a number of personnel moves late Wednesday, including the dismissal, or resignation, of Chief Financial Officer Bruce Thompson; details of all the moves are outlined in American Banker. The Wall Street Journal and the New York Times both speculate the executive shuffling was a response to regulators chastising the firm's leadership for mistakes on...

A growing number of regulators have indicated their support for raising the asset thresholds at which banks face new regulatory requirements. That's welcome news Â-- but time is of the essence in implementing any changes.

Rolling back unnecessarily burdensome and costly regulations is the only way to ensure credit unionsÂ' survival. To that end, lawmakers should pass a bill that would give credit unions relief from annual privacy notice requirements and grant safe harbor qualified-mortgage status for certain loans held in their portfolios.