BankThink

Breaking News This Morning ...

B of A Settles with Fannie: B of A has agreed to pay $10.3 billion to settle claims that it sold bad loans to Fannie Mae. Under the terms of the settlement, the bank will pay Fannie $3.6 billion, and will also spend $6.75 billion buying back mortgages from the housing giant at a discount to their original value. The settlement is likely to wipe out B of A's earnings for...

It's a truism among financial institutions that not all revenue is created equal: some revenue costs a lot more to produce. Yet among many organizations, the exact costs related to specific revenue remain a mystery.

The FHA should calculate and publish its properly-called capital under standard GAAP accounting. Taxpayers could thereby be much better informed about what it is charging up on their credit card.

The bank should have recognized that the borrower's conditions had changed, and so should the conditions of the credit change, accordingly.

Receiving Wide Coverage ...

The Fiscal, Uh, Valley: The budget deal reached at the beginning of this year extends an obscure but important tax break for U.S. banks that do business overseas, according to the FT. Under the "subpart F exception for active financing income" (rolls off the tongue, don't it?), income earned on certain transactions outside U.S. borders is taxed only when brought back into the country. The exception was introduced in the late 1990s...