national-global

Morning Scan: More Fallout from Sanctions Violations

11/19/14

Receiving Wide Coverage ...

French Twist: Thought the story about BNP Paribas violating U.S. sanctions against Sudan, Iran and China was over? Not so much. Five months after the French bank agreed to plead guilty and fork over almost $9 billion, home-country prosecutors are investigating whether senior officials at the bank violated insider trading laws by selling stock while the U.S. sanctions probe was under way. The story was broken Tuesday by a French news outlet,...

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Morning Scan: FHA Returns to the Black; Civil Case Against Mozilo?

11/18/14

Receiving Wide Coverage ...

Housing Rebound?: The Wall Street Journal and Washington Post both have articles noting the significance of the Federal Housing Authority returning to the black for the first time since 2011. The FHA served as a backstop for the housing market during the financial crisis, when other lending sources dried up. But that resulted in a sharp increase in the FHA's default rate. Now the agency has recovered, at least in one sense....

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Morning Scan: Supercharged Spending on Cybersecurity; Robo-Signers Return

11/17/14

Wall Street Journal

Banks and other financial-services companies will increase spending on cybersecurity by $2 billion over the next two years, according to a PricewaterhouseCoopers study. Citigroup, for example, now spends about $300 million yearly on cybersecurity, an anonymous source told the Journal. Wells Fargo spends about $250 million per year. JPMorgan Chase now spends about $250 million, but that could double over the next years, CEO Jamie Dimon has said. JPMorgan has about 1,000 workers...

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Morning Scan: Ocwen, Wells Fargo Scrap Deal; De-Risking as 'Fig Leaf' for Banks

11/14/14

Receiving Wide Coverage ...

The Rate Hike Waiting Game: The Federal Reserve may push its timeline for raising interest rates back from mid-2015 if wage growth fails to improve, according to articles in both the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times. The fact that more people are quitting their jobs suggests the labor market may be tightening, according to the Journal, but there are other signs that strong pay increases may be a ways...

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Morning Scan: Banks' Consumer Debt Reporting Probed; Were Forex Deals Too Soft?

11/13/14

Receiving Wide Coverage ...

Regulators' Weak Sauce: U.S. and foreign regulators fined six big banks a cumulative $4.3 billion Wednesday in a round of settlements charging them with conspiring to manipulate the foreign exchange market, and the peanut gallery is unimpressed. The Financial Times points out the fines "are less stunning than the scale of the conspiracy against the banks' customers and the catastrophic failure of oversight on the part of bank executives." Bank executives and...

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Morning Scan: Five Banks Reach $3.3B Forex Deal; Is Lawsky Eying the Exit?

11/12/14

Receiving Wide Coverage ... First Forex Deal Reached: Five banks have agreed to shell out a total of $3.3 billion to U.S., British and Swiss authorities to settle charges that they tried to manipulated the foreign exchange market. The banks included in the settlement were Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, HSBC, Royal Bank of Scotland and UBS; Barclays had been in talks with regulators but got cold feet as the announcement neared, the New York Times reports. TheÂ...

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Morning Scan: Postal Service Hacked; CFTC to Join in Forex Settlements

11/11/14

Receiving Wide Coverage ...

Second Takes on FSB Rules: The Financial Stability Board's newly proposed capital requirements for the world's largest banks may make banks safer, but they won't end the debate over too big to fail, according to the Wall Street Journal. Analysts estimate big U.S. banks would have to issue billions of dollars in new long-term debt in order to meet the FSB requirements and predict banks will "face a modest earnings headwind" on...

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Morning Scan: FSB Proposes Capital Rules; AG Pick Has History with Big Banks

11/10/14

Receiving Wide Coverage ...

Beating Back Bailouts: The Financial Stability Board has taken a fresh stab at ending too big to fail with a newly proposed set of rules for the world's largest banks. Banks would be obliged to hold capital equal to 16-20% of their risk-weighted assets and to meet a capital leverage ratio twice the size of the Basel III requirement under the proposal. The New York Times notes the rules would have a...

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Morning Scan: Emails Stolen in Home Depot Attack; JPMorgan Whistleblower Speaks

11/07/14

Receiving Wide Coverage ...

Emails Stolen: You thought just your account information was stolen by the Home Depot hackers? Think again. The orange-clad home-improvement retailer said hackers that broke into its computer networks stole not only 56 million credit-card accounts, but also 53 million customer email addresses. While email addresses are already somewhat publicly available, the nefarious-minded can use the email address to trick people into signing up or agreeing to things they probably don't want....

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Morning Scan: Banks' High Hopes After GOP Win; Russian Money Laundering?

11/06/14

Receiving Wide Coverage ... Not So Fast My Friend: Both the Wall Street Journal's "Heard on the Street" column and the Financial Times's "Lex" column caution bank investors to not get their hopes up after the boffo Republican showing in this year's elections. The costs of reeling in some of the bank-reform laws deemed most egregious by GOP leaders are likely too high. The FT notes any gifts to the financial industry will likely go toÂ...

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