national-global

Years Later, Government Civil Mortgage Crackdown Continues; Wall Street Work Good for Those Who Can Get It

10/10/12

Receiving Wide Coverage ...

'Yet Another Bank': One week after New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman filed a civil case against JPMorgan Chase alleging fraud in how Bear Stearns packaged and sold mortgage-backed securities, Wells Fargo finds itself being sued by the government for nearly a decade's worth of "reckless" mortgage lending. U.S. prosecutors (not affiliated with Schneiderman's mortgage task force, though he has promised more suits are on the way) are seeking "hundreds of millions...

[more]

Walmart Goes from Green (Dot) to Amex Blue; Stressing Over Stress Tests

10/09/12

Receiving Wide Coverage ...

Bluebird Alights: The Bluebird debit card Walmart rolled out Monday marks another phase in the retailing giant's aggressive push into financial services, the Journal reports. The Bluebird card doesn't have a monthly maintenance fee, annual fee or activation fee, whereas other prepaid cards carry fees of $5 or more a month, as well as a nest of other charges, notes the Journal, which adds that Bluebird arrives as checking account fees reach...

[more]

Loyalty to Jamie Dimon Is No Guarantee of Job Security at JPMorgan

10/05/12

Receiving Wide Coverage ...

JPMorgasbord: Barry Zubrow, JPMorgan Chase's head of regulatory affairs, is leaving his job before the end of the year, and may or may not stay with the bank in an advisory role, the Journal reports, citing anonymous sources. The article also reveals that Jes Staley, the chairman of JPM's corporate and investment banking unit, was a candidate to run Barclays after the Libor scandal forced the British bank's CEO to step down....

[more]

Dodd-Frank Discussed in Debate; Ocwen Goes Shopping

10/04/12

Receiving Wide Coverage ... An Actual Romney Reboot? The papers are awash with recaps of the first presidential debate, in which Obama and Romney argued over healthcare, taxes... and banks! Being who we are, we'll stick to the outlets that covered the banking news. Romney hit Obama on the slow pace of establishing a definition for a qualified residential mortgage (undeniable even if the immediately beneficial effect of having a rule in place is unclear) and...

[more]

JPM Calls Schneiderman a Copycat; Bill Gross Calls Uncle Sam a Junkie

10/03/12

Receiving Wide Coverage ...

Schneiderman vs. JPMorgan, Day Two: JPMorgan Chase tells the Journal that New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman's lawsuit alleging securities fraud by JPM predecessor institution Bear Stearns "recycle[s] claims already made by private plaintiffs." Specifically, a lot of the profanity-laced trader emails and statistics cited by Schneiderman were also in a suit filed against JPM by the bond insurer Ambac. Moreover, a member of Schneiderman's staff worked on the Ambac case at...

[more]

Schneiderman's Loaded for Bear; CFPB's Surprising Target

10/02/12

Receiving Wide Coverage ... A Bear of a Case: In the first action by his task force on mortgage securitization fraud, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman sued JPMorgan over bonds that Bear Stearns sold before JPM acquired it. Naturally, the complaint quotes from embarrassing, obscenity-laced emails, and one Bear Stearns trader allegedly coined a phrase that would make Henry Blodget blush (the Huffington Post saw fit to put this innovation of profanity in its headline)....

[more]

Money Market Funds Will Be First Major Foe Superregulator Faces; CFTC Rule Gets Vacated

10/01/12

Receiving Wide Coverage ...

Battle over Money Market Funds Intensifies: A recent push by regulators to reform money market funds has become about much more than revamping a risky industry. According to the Journal, the showdown is "turning into a major test of a key change to the U.S. financial architecture after the most severe financial crisis in half a century" since the establishing new rules regarding the funds has now fallen to the Financial Stability...

[more]

Wheatley Orders Major Libor Makeover, Goldman Settles Pay-to-Play Charges, Being Ben Bernanke

09/28/12

Breaking News This Morning ... $2.4B to Make It Go Away: Bank of America agreed to pay $2.43 billion to settle a class-action lawsuit brought by investors who claimed, among other things, that the bank misled them about the health of Merrill Lynch, which B of A was in the process of buying. B of A denies the allegations, but said it just wanted to put the dispute to rest. "Resolving this litigation removes uncertainty and...

[more]

High-Frequency Unhinged, Lending Sorta Rebounds, Mortgage Manipulator Nabbed

09/27/12

Receiving Wide Coverage ...

SEC to the Rescue: If awards were handed out for Most Reliable Lagging Indicator in U.S. financial markets, the Securities and Exchange Commission, sad to say, would likely walk away with the gold. (Such are the vagaries of overseeing financial markets with a revolving-door staff and politically polarized Commission.) Now, in the wake of the flash crash, Knight Capital Group's near suicide and the Nasdaq-Facebook IPO flub, comes word that the SEC...

[more]

BBA Votes to Cede Control of Libor, Santander Sets Share Price

09/26/12

Receiving Wide Coverage ... Libor Shuffle: We suspected Libor was going to be big news this week. Following CFTC chairman Gary Gensler's call for radical reform of the Libor system, reports surfaced that the British Bankers' Association has voted to give control of the benchmark interest rate - which the BBA itself created back in 1986 - to someone else. The trade association's vote, which took place earlier this month, precedes the formal recommendations from U.K....

[more]