Archive for Christopher

In a recent study by CardHub.com, Capital One (COF) and Bank of America (BAC) came in first and second in terms of disclosing essential information to consumers on their credit card applications. One of the primary catalysts for the recently passed credit card law (Credit CARD Act) has been the need for greater transparency between [...]

In the latest of bad and embarrassing news for the big banks, Wells Fargo & Co. (WFC) has been ordered to pay more than $200 million for manipulating and multiplying overdraft fees. Both Forbes and CNNMoney are reporting that U.S. District Court Judge William Alsup of Northern California, in his 90-page ruling Tuesday, said Wells Fargo [...]

The U.S. economy isn’t recovering fast enough to restore the level of jobs seen before the recession started in December 2007, said John Silvia, chief economist at Wells Fargo & Company (WFC). In an interview with Tom Keene on “Bloomberg Surveillance,” Silvia spoke from Charlotte North Carolina about the second quarter GDP numbers released earlier [...]

Citigroup Inc. (C) agreed on Thursday to pay $75 million to settle a lawsuit brought by the Securities and Exchange Commission that the bank failed to disclose $40 billion in subprime exposure to investors. For the last year, the SEC has conducted a broad investigation into a variety of banking practices before and during the [...]

A recent article for Fortune magazine’s “Street Sweep” cites three examples of how Citigroup (C) is liberally interpreting the new Volcker rule. Selling a $3.5 billion real-estate fund to Apollo Management and a $4.2 billion fund of hedge funds to SkyBridge Capital, and it let its star commodities trader, Andrew Hall, go free to pursue [...]

The U.S. Treasury Department today announced that it will make a pre-arranged sale of Citigroup (C) common stock. This is the third such sale Treasury has conducted since taking a 27% stake in Citigroup through the Troubled Asset Relief Program. Morgan Stanley will act as Treasury’s sales agent and will have discretionary authority to sell [...]

KeyCorp (KEY) reported its first quarterly profit in two years. The Cleveland-based banking company attributed the positive report to fewer non-performing loans, more income from fees and better cost controls. “These results are encouraging and the return to profitability represents an important step forward for our company,” CEO Henry L. Meyer III said. “Continued improvement [...]

One piece of the financial reform legislation that passed through both houses of Congress last week included the Durbin amendment. But despite the headlines being made by large banks such as Bank of America (BAC), it is regional banks that may suffer the most. The Durbin amendment, as it’s known for Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., [...]

Bloomberg News is reporting that Bank of America Corp. (BAC) is arranging a $300 million collateralized loan obligation (CLO), according to people familiar with the situation. LCM Asset Management LLC, a $2.35 billion investment firm, will manage the CLO, a form of collateralized debt obligation that bundles high-yield, high-risk loans and slices them into securities [...]

This much is clear. We haven’t heard the last about Goldman Sachs’ settlement with the SEC. Daily Finance has been all over this story. Their reporting details both the short-term benefits and long-term challenges facing Goldman Sachs (GS) as a result of the settlement over its Abacus synthetic collateralized debt obligation (CDO) transaction. Short-term, they [...]