Archive for December, 2009
American Banking News Twitter Updates for the Week of 2009-12-27
INTERVIEW: ECB's Nowotny Says Greece Bailout Not An Option – Wall Street Journal http://tinyurl.com/yar4edd #Econ # Keep State Bank Support – ECB's Nowotny – New York Times http://tinyurl.com/y9dkv44 #Econ # Morgan Stanley's New CEO Is a Switch – Wall Street Journal http://tinyurl.com/yezd5xv #Econ # Dodd tacks new course on Senate bank bill – Boston Globe [...]
SmartyPig Fees: What Fees You Pay When Using the SmartyPig Savings Account
SmartyPig provides savers with an innovative ways to save for major purchases. The SmartyPig savings account helps consumers establish specific financial goals to save for and allows others to contribute to your savings goal. When SmartyPig first launched its product, there were a number of fees that consumers had to pay, but SmartyPig listened to [...]
How to Develop an Automatic Savings Plan with SmartyPig
In David Bach’s book, “The Automatic Millionaire”, the author stresses the importance of developing an automatic savings plan so that you actually meet the financial goals that you have. We all want to save up and pay for new things such as a new car, a new television or a new computer, but we often [...]
Prosper Mobile: Prosper.com Launches Mobile Peer-to-Peer Lending Marketplace
Prosper.com, also known as Prosper Marketplace, has released the mobile version of their peer-to-peer lending service. Prosper Marketplace’s new mobile website is targeted clearly toward the lending side of peer-to-peer lending. The service allows lenders to login to their accounts, manage their account settings, view their watch lists, search borrower listings, place bids on listings, [...]
Prosper.com Competitors: Who is the Prosper Marketplace Up Against?
Prosper.com, also known as the Prosper Marketplace, was the first company in the United States to launch a significant online peer-to-peer lending service that connects borrowers and lenders. Since the company was launched in 2006, a number of competitors have propped up. Prosper.com’s primary competitor in the United States is Lending Club. Lending Club started [...]
Using Smarty Pig To Pay For College
SmartyPig is a goal-based online savings account that allows individuals to pay for major purchases, such as flat screen televisions, computers and new cars. You can use the service to save for just about anything, even college. Before suggesting how you might save for college using SmartyPig, it’s important to note that there are some [...]
SmartyPig Interest Rate: How SmartyPig Can Offer Above Average Interest Rates
Most online savings accounts are currently offering rates of return between 1.0% and 1.5% APY on their money, but one online savings vehicle, SmartyPig, is currently offering 2.01% APY to its account holders. How can SmartyPig offer above average interest rates when its competitors are offering much lower interest rates? Some have questioned whether or [...]
Fannie Mae (NYSE: FNM), Freddie Mac (NYSE: FRE) Execs May Earn $6 Million, Gov’t To Withdraw $400 Billion Financial Aid Cap
According to regulatory filings, Fannie Mae (NYSE: FNM) Chief Executive Michael Williams and Freddie Mac CEO Charles Halderman Jr. are each eligible to receive compensation for 2009 that could reach $6 million. The two mortgage giants, which were taken into conservatorship in 2008 by the U.S. government, have seen plenty of debate over the past [...]
FDIC Receives Welcome News – Mulitple Bidders For Troubled Loan Portfolio
The FDIC has received bids from over a dozen investors for a $1.1 billion dollar package of commercial real-estate loans that they acquired from various failed banks. The portfolio consists of mostly nonperforming commercial property loans. Demand for these assets, at a discounted price, has grown intense. Investors have amassed billions of dollars to buy [...]
Citigroup (NYSE: C) Repays $20 Billion In TARP Funds
Citigroup Inc. (NYSE: C) announced Wednesday that it has repaid the $20 billion it received from the government last year as part of the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). The move frees the bank from employee pay restrictions in 2010 that regulators imposed as part of the financial aid. The bank repaid the TARP funds [...]
Wells Fargo (NYSE: WFC) Makes Final Payment on TARP Funds
Wells Fargo (NYSE: WFC) announced Wednesday that they’ve completely paid off the TARP funds it received from the federal government, which amounted to $25 billion. The U.S. Treasury acquired $25 billion of series D preferred stock in October 2008 as the means to raise the money for Wells Fargo under TARP’s Capital Purchase Program. Included [...]
New Home Sales Plunge as Personal Income and Spending Fail to Meet Expectations
Many people were shocked to find that not only did new home sales on grow in number, but they plunged by a huge 11.3 percent to levels not seen since April. To show how bad the drop was, economists from Thomson Reuters were looking for sales to grow at a pace of 440,000, while the [...]
Lending Club Receives “B+” Rating From Better Business Bureau
The popular peer-to-peer lending company, Lending Club, has earned a “B+” rating from San Jose’s division of the Better Business Bureau. This news comes on the heels of Lending Club’s primary competitor, Prosper Marketplace, earning an unsatisfactory “D+” rating from the BBB. Lending Club received its “B+” rating because of the relatively low number of [...]
Citigroup, Inc. (NYSE: C) and Wells Fargo & Co. (NYSE: WFC) Complete TARP Repayments
Wells Fargo & Co. (WFC) and Citigroup, Inc. (C) both repaid the government aid they received under the Trouble Asset Resolution Program (TARP). Although expected, it wasn’t a foregone conclusion that Wells Fargo and Citigroup would repay their TARP funds by Christmas. Bank of America Corp. surprised investors by announcing plans to repay $45 billion [...]
SmartyPig Scam: Is SmartyPig a Legitimate Service?
When new financial services come out on the market, consumers are naturally skeptical. It’s taken some time for online savings accounts, online checking accounts and peer-to-peer lending services to gain credibility among consumers. Many consumers question whether new and innovative services are a scam, but in many cases, they are perfectly legitimate services—such as SmartyPig. [...]
worst video player ever- after over2:00 there's still no video appearing 