Bankruptcy Blogs

Barclays has mounted a sober public response to a tongue-in-cheek email sent by analyst Justin Kwan to a crop of summer interns. But the bank would have been better served by showing the world that it has a sense of humor.

A NII Holdings Inc. financial adviser said creditors received no specific estimates on the potential cost of litigation of certain disputed claims, a key sticking point in the Latin American Nextel carrier’s bid to have its restructuring plan approved. The Wall Street Journal has the Daily Bankruptcy Review article here.

Alternative data used to score "credit invisibles" may do more harm than good. That's because in areas like employment and insurance, no credit score is often better than a bad one.

New York Times

Why is this not deemed to be money laundering? Pro-Russia rebel groups in eastern Ukraine have raised money through crowdfunding sites to fund their military campaigns. Much of their funding comes via Russian state-owned banks, including Sberbank, and through a private system of payment terminals owned by the company QIWI, which is affiliated with Visa. The rebel groups have also solicited funds from outside Russia using U.S. and European banks and through PayPal...

Fannie and Freddie should offer upfront risk-sharing options in order to give lenders an opportunity to lower their guarantee fees while encouraging more private capital and competition to flow into the secondary mortgage market.