national-global

Fiscal Cliff Deal Extends Tax Break for Megabanks; New Day at B of A

01/03/13

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...

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UBS and Libor: The 'Epic' Saga Continues; NYSE Announces Merger

12/20/12

Holiday Notice: The Morning Scan will publish next on Thursday, Jan. 3, 2013. Happy holidays from all of us at American Banker. Receiving Wide Coverage ...

The UBS-Libor Saga Continues: "Epic," that's the word regulators (and, subsequently news outlets) are attaching to UBS' involvement in the London interbank offered rate-rigging scandal as more details emerge about what led to its recent $1.5 billion settlement with authorities and the arrest of two former traders Tom Hayes and Roger...

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Libor Manipulation: UBS Makes Deal; Was Geithner Tipped in 2008?

12/19/12

Receiving Wide Coverage ...

UBS Fined in Libor Probe: An irony of the Libor probe is that it's looking nearly as choreographed and negotiated as the long-running rate manipulation that preceded it. Early this morning UBS and Swiss regulators announced the bank had agreed to a $1.5 billion settlement, and arrests of people connected with the Swiss bank are expected today, according to anonymous sources. RBS is next in line to settle, these same sources say....

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Out of Sight Out of Mind on Facebook IPO Rules; More About the Cliff

12/18/12

Receiving Wide Coverage ...

Facebook IPO Settlement: Morgan Stanley's paying $5 million to settle a Massachusetts probe of how it handled the Facebook IPO. According to a Journal story crosschecked between the state's attorney general's office and people "familiar with the matter," star tech analyst Michael Grimes wrote a script with detailed, non-public information for Facebook's CFO to share with investors. Then, in what might seem a cynical approach to dealing with Morgan Stanley's supposed Chinese...

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AIG to Have (Another) Share Sale; Fiscal Cliff Update; Draghi Named FT's Person of the Year

12/17/12

Receiving Wide Coverage ... AIG Is Having (Another) Share Sale: The newly private (or perhaps newly re-private) AIG is set to sell its shares in Asian life insurer AIA. Prices have yet to be set, but the sale is expected to net the company anywhere from $6.4 billion to $6.7 billion, depending on what paper you ask. AIG told Dealbook it will "sell the shares to institutional investors" and "use the proceeds from the deal for...

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UBS Near Libor Settlement; The Case Against 'Arthur Andresen'-ing HSBC

12/14/12

Receiving Wide Coverage ...

UBS Settlement: The Swiss bank is negotiating a deal with international regulators in which it will pay $1 billion in fines for manipulating Libor, the papers report. UBS' Japanese unit will enter a guilty plea to a criminal charge, the first such capitulation by a bank in over a decade, according to the New York Times. "Federal prosecutors are trying to strike a balance," the paper says. "By levying a charge against...

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Fed Ties Rates to Jobless; Allbritton Dies

12/13/12

Receiving Wide Coverage ...

Rates Tied to Unemployment: Holy mackerel. The Delphic confusion of Fedspeak past vanished from headlines on the central bank's policy statement Wednesday. Both the Journal and the Times went with "Fed Ties Rates to Joblessness," and FT wasn't far off (different font, different space to fill, presumably). ...

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A Prosecution Deferred; MIT's Future New-Keynesian Central Bankers Club

12/12/12

Receiving Wide Coverage ...

HSBC Settlement Redux: Wednesday was the tail end of the HSBC money laundering news cycle, with major papers scrutinizing the bank's $1.9 billion deferred prosecution agreement with the U.S. According to the 21 law enforcement officials, the bank's misconduct was egregious, sustained, and possibly willful. (Either that or nobody noticed when people started regularly showing up at Mexican HSBC branches with boxes of cash that fit precisely through the holes in the...

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Laundry Bill Totals $2.6 Billion for HSBC and Standard Chartered

12/11/12

Receiving Wide Coverage ...

Laundry Bills: The whispers were out there last week, now it's official: HSBC has admitted it ignored signs of money laundering for years and agreed to pay a record $1.9 billion in a settlement with U.S. authorities. (Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, New York Times.) Fellow British bank Standard Chartered agreed to a $327 million settlement for violating U.S. sanctions against Iran, Libya and other nations (Journal, New York Times), bringing its...

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Banking News All Over the World, Little of It Good

12/10/12

Wall Street Journal

In what is either an oversight or an extreme dislike of jargon, the Journal managed to write an 800-word article on the imminent expiration of the Transaction Guarantee Program (TAG) without once using the phrases "Transaction Guarantee Program" or "TAG." The gist is that the Senate would re-up the program, the Republican-dominated House won't, and small banks are seething and fighting for an extension. ...

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