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CFPB Drops a Load of Rules on Mortgage Servicers; JPMorgasbord

01/17/13

Breaking News This Morning ...

Earnings: Bank of America, BB&T, Citigroup, Fifth Third, Huntington, PNC Receiving Wide Coverage ...

CFPB to Unveil New Servicing Rules: Among other significant changes, mortgage servicers will have to wait until a borrower is 120 days delinquent before initiating the foreclosure process under the rule, which preempts state foreclosure laws. The rule will also ban "dual tracking," in which servicers start foreclosure while a loan modification is being processed. Several articles quote consumer...

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JPM's Teachable Moment; Bonus Blues at Both Houses of Morgan

01/16/13

Breaking News This Morning ...

Earnings: JPMorgan, Bank of New York Mellon, Comerica, M&T, Northern Trust, U.S. Bancorp, Goldman Sachs

JPMorgan Potpourri: CEO Jamie Dimon's compensation has been cut, as expected. The company also released management and board reports on the London Whale trading loss. "This incident teaches a number of important lessons that the Firm is taking very seriously," the report says. Receiving Wide Coverage ... ...

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Regulators to JPM: Don't Ever Let Us Catch You Doing That Again

01/15/13

Receiving Wide Coverage ...

JPM's Parking Tickets: The Fed and OCC hit JPMorgan Chase with enforcement actions related to last year's $6 billion trading loss and inadequate anti-money laundering controls. The orders include no monetary fines or admission of wrongdoing, just remediation steps (wryly summed up by the FT's Alphaville blog: "Look into my eyes: you will implement the Action Plan.") Then again, as one journalist tweeted while the news was disseminating Monday afternoon, "in all...

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Debt Ceiling Update; Chinese Investments Disappoint; Big Banks' Leverage Ratios Remain a Mystery

01/14/13

Receiving Wide Coverage ...

Debt Ceiling Update: A Journal article this morning looks at Treasury's options for paying the nation's bills should Congress refuse to raise the $16.4 trillion federal borrowing limit. These option include "selling assets such as gold or mortgage-backed securities ... cutting all spending by 40% ... delaying trillions of dollars of payments to employees, Social Security recipients, contractors and others" or paying the government's bills only as tax revenue become available. The...

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Amex's Ax, Qualified Mortgage Misery, the Fed's Fuzzy Crystal Ball

01/11/13

Receiving Wide Coverage ...

Amex Swings the Ax: The tectonic shifts that are reshaping finance struck American Express (AXP) late Thursday when it released its fourth quarter earnings ahead of schedule, along with the bombshell that it's planning to eliminate 5,400 jobs, or 8.5% of its staff. The Wall Street Journal describes the job cuts as Amex's biggest retrenchment in a decade. Most of the reductions will involve the New York-based company's (sorry, Mayor Bloomberg) travel...

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CFPB Unveils Mortgage Rules; Morgan Stanley Plans Layoffs; Being Jack Lew

01/10/13

Receiving Wide Coverage ...

Qualified Mortgage Rules: Several news outlets (American Banker included) are out with a breakdown of what is in the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's new mortgage standards, ahead of its press conference on the subject later today. Key points of the rules include prohibitions from offering mortgages with deceptive teaser rates or ones that require no documentation from borrowers, restrictions from charging borrowers excessive upfront points and fees and a somewhat unexpected safe...

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Raging Against Possible AIG Lawsuit; JPM Personnel Changes Continue

01/09/13

Receiving Wide Coverage ... Seriously, AIG?: We had a feeling the Internet was going to let out a collective groan once the news that AIG was considering a lawsuit against the federal government over its $182 billion bailout was picked up by news outlets and made the rounds on Twitter. (To summarize, the firm is being asked to join a suit originally launched by former CEO Maurice Greenberg, who claims the terms of the bailout were...

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Mortgage Settlements Decoded, AIG Thanks Government for Bailout by Considering Lawsuit

01/08/13

Receiving Wide Coverage ...

B of A Settlement: "An albatross that the bank has fought hard to loosen," that's what a Washington Post article on B of A's $11.6 billion settlement with mortgage giant Fannie Mae calls the bank's acquisition of Countrywide, which has now collectively cost B of A more than $40 billion in losses. It remains unlikely that the bank's most recent related payoff will help them shake that bird entirely. According to this...

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B of A Settles with Fannie, Foreclosure Pact Within Reach, Regulators Agree to Make Basel More Flexible

01/07/13

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...

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Cracks in QE3; Swap Regs Deferred; Lovable Checking Fees

01/04/13

Receiving Wide Coverage ... Unease With Easing: How low can interest rates go? Maybe no lower than where they are now. That's one plausible take-away from news that members of the Federal Open Market Committee are split over whether to continue through year's end the Federal Reserve's third round of quantitative easing, known as QE3. ...

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