BankThink

Nine Digits, 100 Candles

03/03/11

This year marks the hundredth anniversary of a prosaic, but integral, feature of the U.S. banking system: uniform routing numbers.

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Never Mind the Lobbyists, Durbin Amendment Helps Small Banks

03/03/11

One of the arguments made against the Durbin restriction on interchange is that it will hurt community banks. Poppycock. Since Durbin explicitly excludes banks with assets under $10 billion from the restriction on interchange, it takes a hyperactive imagination to see how these banks could be hurt by it. Lobbyists have the requisite inventiveness.

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How GSE Hearing May Affect Broader Debate

03/01/11

As Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner heads to the House Financial Services Committee this morning to testify on the White House's housing finance reform plan, observers are hoping some key questions can finally be cleared up:
1) Will Geithner express a preference for a particular approach?
2) Will House Republicans rally around an approach?
3) How much name calling will there be?

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Should Big-Bank Execs Go to Jail for the Financial Crisis?

02/28/11

Charles Ferguson may have won an Academy Award late Sunday for directing "Inside Job," a documentary on the financial crisis, but he appeared to be channeling another Oscar-winning film when he delivered his acceptance speech: "There Will Be Blood."

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No Cure for the Foreclosureblues

02/18/11

American Banker 's recent story about regulators planning enforcement actions (and likely fines) against the big mortgage servicers is the buzz of the blogosphere. Not all the buzz is all that friendly to us, though.

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