BankThink

Morning Scan: Big Banks' Feeble Earnings Season; The Real Dread Pirate Roberts

01/16/15

Editor's note: Morning Scan will not publish on Monday, Jan. 19 in observance of the Dr. Martin Luther King Day holiday. We'll be back on Tuesday, Jan. 20. Breaking News This Morning ...

Earnings: SunTrust, Comerica, PNC Receiving Wide Coverage ...

Earnings Postmortem: Bank of America and Citigroup each produced disappointing fourth-quarter results as trading revenue went south and low interest rates curbed potential profits. Taken together with JPMorgan's less-than-stellar earnings, these results suggest the fate of the biggest...

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Banks Should Go Green with Solar Mortgage Products

01/15/15

Lenders could save time and money by offering homeowners the opportunity to finance the purchase of a rooftop solar system into a new mortgage.

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Can Loan Officers Outperform Computers?

01/15/15

While computers may have bested humans in chess and mutual fund management, loan underwriting is one area where men can still beat machines.

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Morning Scan: JPM's Dimon Says Bigger Is Better; Embattled Dodd-Frank

01/15/15

Breaking News This Morning ...

Earnings: Citigroup, Bank of America Receiving Wide Coverage ...

Dimon Says Bigger Is Better: With so much chatter about a JPMorgan Chase breakup these days, one wonders if the megabank could eventually be forced to downsize out of pure conversational momentum. JPMorgan head Jamie Dimon spent fourth-quarter earnings calls Wednesday defending his bank's behemoth status. "The synergies are huge, both expense and revenue," Dimon said. "The unscrambling would be extraordinarily complex." Dimon also...

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EMV Cards Still Prone to Payments Crime

01/14/15

EMV cards are moving payments security in the right direction. But if hackers tamper with the hardware or associated software on merchants' EMV-enabled equipment, they can silently spirit off customer data.

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Regulate Banks by Complexity, Not Size

01/14/15

Small banks arenÂ't disappearing Â-- theyÂ're just getting bigger. Meanwhile, their large competitors are exiting business lines and selling off units. These changes suggest that regulators would be better off issuing rules based on lendersÂ' level of complexity, relieving institutions that operate by a core banking model of unnecessary burdens.

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Morning Scan: Ocwen Tangles with California Regulators; MetLife's Got Chutzpah

01/14/15

Breaking News This Morning ...

Earnings: JPMorgan, Wells Fargo Receiving Wide Coverage ...

See You in Court: Is MetLife brave or foolish for going to battle over its designation as a systemically important financial institution? Opinions are split on the matter. In the pro camp, an unsigned op-ed in the Wall Street Journal calls MetLife's decision to sue the U.S. government "the best news taxpayers have had since the financial crisis." The article argues the Financial Stability Oversight...

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A New Congress, a New Chance to Rein In the CFPB

01/13/15

The CFPB should receive its funding from Congress rather than the Federal Reserve in order to increase its accountability. Lawmakers should also take steps to limit the power accorded to the agency's director.

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Check-the-Box Mentality Exposes Banks to Big Cyber Risks

01/13/15

Banks can be compliant with cybersecurity guidelines and still remain vulnerable to massive liabilities. One case in point: many financial institutions carry mandatory insurance policies that could leave them on the hook for six-figure losses from corporate account takeovers.

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Morning Scan: MetLife Sues Over Too Big to Fail Label; Chalk One Up for Warren

01/13/15

Receiving Wide Coverage ...

Game On: MetLife is suing the U.S. government for designating it as a systemically important financial institution. The life insurer plans to file a lawsuit in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia Tuesday. MetLife is the first firm to try to shake off the systemically important label by going to court, the New York Times reports. An article in the Wall Street Journal sheds light on why company...

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