national-regional

Morning Scan: Promontory Strikes Back; Citizens Scolded

08/17/15

Receiving Wide Coverage ... India to Reform State Banks: India is betting that a private-sector mindset can help restore its public banks. The country has hired former top executives from Microsoft and Citigroup to take charge of the state banks' recapitalization efforts and reforms. Writing for Quartz, professor T.T. Ram Mohan sounds a bit skeptical about the plan: "It's hard to see why the best professionals in the private sector would want the job," he writes,Â...

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Morning Scan: Goldman Dips Toe into Retail Banking; Public-Private Partnership Targets Hackers

08/14/15

Receiving Wide Coverage ...

Goldman Goes Retail: Goldman Sachs is getting a bundle of deposits from General Electric's GE Capital castoff. Goldman will acquire $8 billion of online deposit accounts and $8 billion of brokered certificates of deposit. The GE bank that Goldman is buying does not require a minimum balance for online savings accounts; and it boasts 140,000 retail customers. ...

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Women in Banking: Byrne's Leadership Index; All-Male Shortlists Banned; Peetz on Social Finance

08/13/15

Barclays' Barbara Byrne launches her Women in Leadership index, one bank bans all-male shortlists, the @GSElevator guy speaks out for women, Karen Peetz has some ideas to make social finance more attractive and the Manbassador movement grows.

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Morning Scan: Citi Holdings Is No Longer Breaking Bad; SunGard Sale Dissected

08/13/15

Wall Street Journal

Citigroup has made such good progress with Citi Holdings, its "bad bank," that the unit has reported four straight quarters of profit. That was nearly unthinkable for the unit when it was first created, as a way to separate Citi's unwanted and toxic assets from the good part of Citigroup. "We're out of the dark tunnel," says Francesco Vanni d'Archirafi, who runs the unit for Citi. ...

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Morning Scan: GE Sells Health Care Unit; Sadder But Wiser Bankers

08/12/15

Receiving Wide Coverage ...

The Incredible Shrinking GE: General Electric is shedding financing units at a rapid pace. In its latest move, the company has sold its health-care lending business to Capital One for roughly $9 billion. GE's goal is to unload $100 billion of GE Capital assets by the end of 2015 as it seeks to concentrate on its industrial business, and it's on track to do so with about $78 billion sold thus far. ...

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Morning Scan: Clinton's Student Loan Reform; Insider Trading-Cybercrime Ring Targeted

08/11/15

Receiving Wide Coverage ...

The Old College Try: Hillary Clinton unveiled her plan to deal with the problem of skyrocketing student debt. Clinton's plan would provide about $175 billion in grants and loans to states that guarantee students wouldn't have to take out loans to cover tuition.

Although her plan's goal is to help families pay for college without taking out loans, it would require families to make a "realistic" contribution to tuition and students would also...

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Morning Scan: Activist Targeting Amex Has Mutual Fund Friends; SEC Reacts

08/10/15

Wall Street Journal

Activist investors have been getting a little help from their new friends at mutual funds. There was once a time when mutual funds wouldn't even pick up the phone when activists called; they worried that even associating with activists would jeopardize their access to management at their portfolio companies. ...

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Morning Scan: OneMain Deal Raises Antitrust Concerns; A Banker's Picasso

08/07/15

Receiving Wide Coverage ...

O Canada: Canadian banks have a money-laundering problem, the Wall Street Journal reports. The country's regulator found 72 failures of anti-money laundering controls among banks between 2009 and 2014, according to the paper's review of a "heavily redacted" document that did not include the names of the banks or specifics about the issues. The paper notes Canada "has been facing growing pressure to step up efforts to fight money laundering." In other...

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Women in Banking: GOP Women on Banking Panel; Boardroom Gains

08/06/15

Rep. Ann Wagner of Missouri is urging House Banking Chair Jeb Hensarling to recruit more female Republicans to the influential panel. Also women are wielding more economic power in the Middle East and Heidrick & Struggles predicts that women will hold half of board seats at major companies within a decade.

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Morning Scan: NYC Battles Banks in Court; Storm Over CEO Pay

08/06/15

Receiving Wide Coverage ...

The Pay Gap Debate: The Securities and Exchange Commission approved a rule Wednesday that will require publicly traded companies to disclose the pay ratio between chief executives and average workers. While the Dodd-Frank requirement was primarily aimed at helping shareholders compare the pay gap between companies, most of the papers predict the disclosures will matter more to employees and the public than to investors. ...

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