BankThink

Bankers in Davos; Deutsche Bank Settles with FERC; Why Firms Keep 'Foreign' Cash in U.S. Bank Accounts

01/23/13

Receiving Wide Coverage ...

Highlights from Davos: The World Economic Forum just began in Davos, Switzerland, but has already produced plenty of interesting news for bankers. According to the FT, preliminary buzz around the event is that arriving executives "are plagued with concerns about growth, restive shareholders and declining margins." The article goes on to note that Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein is attending the event for the first time since 2008, though it's unclear how...

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'Frontline' Learns Firsthand Why Wall Street Is 'Untouchable'

01/22/13

Why haven't any senior Wall Street executives gone to jail for the financial crisis? PBS' "Frontline" is the latest mass media outlet to ask this increasingly unanswerable question.

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Stress Tests? Baloney

01/22/13

If you want to avoid catastrophic outcomes, don't rely on stress test models with hundreds of variables. Focus on finding the small number of factors that could individually precipitate failure.

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Bank of Japan Makes Monetary Regime Change, More Bad News for Barclays

01/22/13

Receiving Wide Coverage ... Bank of Japan Fights Deflation: The Bank of Japan took steps toward a "monetary regime change" this Monday, announcing plans "to enact an ambitious program of further monetary easing" and raise its inflation target to 2%. The plan is intended to end "years of corrosive deflation" and was enacted under pressure from Japan's new Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. It involves (and this will sound familiar) "open-ended" asset purchases and a near-zero interest...

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Banks Face the Innovator's Dilemma

01/21/13

While the banking industry was recovering from a global financial crisis and reacting to the prospects of new regulations, smart entrepreneurs were finding new and better solutions to people's problems.

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GSE Reform Needn't Wait for Congress

01/18/13

Real GSE reform could take years. That's too bad, but in the meantime, the FHFA can start to redesign the securitization process - and phase out redundancies between Fannie and Freddie.

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Bank Earnings Rorschach; Geithner Postscript

01/18/13

Breaking News This Morning ... Earnings: SunTrust, Morgan Stanley, General Electric Receiving Wide Coverage ... Earnings Rorschach: Headlines foregrounded the relentless barrage of legal costs at Bank of America and Citigroup after their quarterly reports yesterday - "Citi and BofA fail to dispel concerns" in FT and "Mortgage Crisis Lingers On at Citigroup and Bank of America" in the Times. The Journal contrasted the pair's results with midsize banks like BB&T and Fifth Third: "a regionally diverse group...

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Watch Out for Shareholder Suits Spawned by CFPB Settlements

01/17/13

Piggyback litigation often follows regulatory actions, and the laws under the CFPB's jurisdiction all but invite follow-on private lawsuits. A huge number of companies may be exposed.

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State Laws Set Low Bar for Risk Governance

01/17/13

Shareholders, Congress and federal banking regulators are demanding greater accountability from executives and boards for risk management lapses. States ought to rise with the tide.

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Banking Safety Net Makes Wall Street Dangerous

01/17/13

Strip nonbank broker-dealers of their ties to the banking system, and the market will demand stronger capital and safer asset growth from these firms, making their failures less systemically dangerous.

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