BankThink

Morning Scan: BNP Paribas's 'Tour de Fraud'

07/01/14

Receiving Wide Coverage ...

'Tour de Fraud,' $8.9B Fine Drive BNP Share Price Up: Are multibillion dollar fines investor catnip? BNP Paribas's stock price opened 3.4% higher on Tuesday, following Monday's announcement that the bank settled with the U.S. government on an $8.9 billion fine for sanctions violations. The markets may have been soothed by the bank's statement that despite the fine it would be able to pay a cash dividend this quarter. Overall, BNP's share...

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FSOC Lacks Credibility in Designating SIFIs

06/30/14

The Financial Stability Oversight Council has manifestly failed to demonstrate that it has any idea how to determine if a financial firm is systemically important, writes AEI fellow Peter Wallison.

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Proceed with Caution on Covenant-Lite Loans

06/30/14

Recovery rates for covenant-lite loans, which impose few financial restrictions on debtors, were pretty decent during the last downturn. But history may not repeat itself.

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Morning Scan: Markets Too Euphoric: BIS; BNP Details Emerge

06/30/14

Receiving Wide Coverage ...

Buoyant Markets Worry BIS: The financial markets are "euphoric" despite uncertain economic and geopolitical outlooks and that worries the Bank for International Settlements, according to its annual report Sunday. The BIS finds the "buoyancy" in the markets "puzzling," according to the Wall Street Journal. And we all know what that means. Any time there are headlines or stories about things like "irrational exuberance" in the markets, it means financial officials are worried...

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Weekly Wrap: Brat Garbles GSE Narrative; Looking Back on Basel II

06/27/14

A recap of the informed opinions (and the discussions they generated) on BankThink this week.

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Why Some Banks Are Measuring Mortgages Wrong

06/27/14

Many banks measure mortgages as they would any other consumer product. But the unique, complex nature of mortgage activity necessitates measuring origination net revenue separately from the bankÂ's decision about whether to invest in the originated loan.

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Morning Scan: BNP's $8.9B Deal Expected Monday; Will Dark Pools Dry Up?

06/27/14

Receiving Wide Coverage ...

Barclays' Dark Pool Dries Up: New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman's civil lawsuit against Barclays is proving bad for the British lender's business. Big banks including Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank and Royal Bank of Canada ditched the lender's dark pool on Thursday in the wake of allegations that Barclays mislead investors about its dealings with high-frequency traders. Meanwhile, Barclay's dark pool trading venue "was overloaded by a high volume of inquiries from...

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A Decade of Perverse Incentives, Spawned by Basel Risk-Weighting

06/26/14

Ten years after the adoption of Basel II, the distortion in bank credit allocation produced by risk-weighted capital requirements has not even begun to be discussed.

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Bankthink: Is it Time to Bring Life Back to Banks?

06/26/14

Insurance executive Kenneth Shapiro on the new parallels between insurance and banking.

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Is it Time to Bring Life Back to Banks?

06/26/14

Insurance executive Kenneth Shapiro on the new parallels between insurance and banking.

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