banks

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Prosecutors: Vatican Bank Covered for Mafia

Bank hid source of client funds, say officials

(Newser) - The Vatican Bank knowingly hid money for the mafia, breaking money laundering laws in the process, prosecutors allege in documents filed in Italian court. Investigators also suspect that several members of the clergy have acted as fronts for mobbed-up businessmen. The allegations spring from a money-laundering probe into the Church’...

Iran Aims to Set Up Covert Banks in Muslim Countries

Tehran is trying to work around sanctions on its banking industry

(Newser) - Iran is attempting to set up undercover banks across the Muslim world, hiding the institutions’ origins with fake names and misleading bureaucracy, the Washington Post reports. Iran is keeping establishments in countries like Iraq and Malaysia shrouded in secrecy as a means of working around tough sanctions, including the Treasury...

Real IRA: We'll Bomb 'Criminal' UK Banks

Promises to attack England despite thin ranks

(Newser) - The Real IRA says it has regrouped, and plans to intensify its terrorist campaign, targeting “military, political, and economic targets,” including banks both in Ireland and in England. In an interview with the Guardian, the group trotted out a new anti-capitalist message, calling bankers “criminals,” and...

Big Banks Still Think We're Chumps
 Big Banks 
 Still Think 
 We're Chumps 
OPINION
Sep 13, 2010 10:42 AM CDT

Big Banks Still Think We're Chumps

Citigroup hasn't learned its lesson from financial crisis

(Newser) - Have the big banks learned their lesson from the financial crisis? Not a chance, writes Charlie Gasparino in the Daily Beast . Citigroup’s recent attempt to bar a well-respected financial analyst from questioning its executives about accounting practices, plus new documents proving the bank’s top brass knew about its...

How Banks' Fake Daisy-Chains Led to Meltdown
 How Banks' Fake 
 Daisy-Chains Led 
 to Meltdown 



investigation
Aug 27, 2010 10:40 AM CDT

How Banks' Fake Daisy-Chains Led to Meltdown

Self-dealing artificially propped up market for CDOs

(Newser) - An extensive ProPublica investigation reveals what it calls “one of the greatest episodes of self-dealing in financial history.” Banks, most notably Merrill Lynch, set the stage for the economic meltdown by rewarding themselves for said “self-dealing” during the final two years of the housing bubble. They created...

Goldman Sachs Boosts Lobbying Costs 40%

Banks want to shape finance reform

(Newser) - Goldman Sachs is spending more and more in Washington—The bank upped its lobbying spending by nearly 40% in the second quarter and has already spent almost as much in the first half of this year as it did in all of 2009, notes the Huffington Post . The company...

Dems Cave to Scott Brown, Kill Bank Tax

$19B tax ditched in favor of $11B in TARP funds

(Newser) - Scott Brown's threat to vote against the financial regulatory overhaul bill unless Democrats met his demands yesterday succeeded in killing the part of the bill Brown had opposed: a $19 billion tax on big banks and hedge funds. Conceding to Brown and ending a dramatic few days of negotiation, lawmakers...

Obama Blasts Big Banks for Crying Poverty, Fighting Fees
Obama Blasts Big Banks for Crying Poverty, Fighting Fees
radio address
Jan 16, 2010 6:46 AM CST

Obama Blasts Big Banks for Crying Poverty, Fighting Fees

If they can pay soaring bonuses, they can help repay taxpayers

(Newser) - President Obama beat up on the big banks in his radio address today, accusing them of crying poverty even as they hand out record breaking bonuses to their own employees. He criticized banks for claiming that the fees he's proposed to help recoup taxpayers losses on the bailout would leave...

Lenders Loosening Up on Mortgage Down-Payments

Max insurable rises to 95% as many markets stabilize

(Newser) - Mortgage lenders and insurers, buoyed by improvement in the housing market, are relaxing their down-payment requirements. As they take more and more markets off the restricted list, the percentage of a property's value insurers will cover is rising from 90% to 95% in many places. Wells Fargo, which has been...

Treasury: Relax, TARP Cost Trimmed by $200B

Estimated loss to taxpayers down to just $42B as banks rebound

(Newser) - In news that may cool public anger over bailouts, the government expects to get back some $328 billion of the $370 billion loaned to troubled companies during the financial crisis. The portion loaned to banks is even showing a slight profit. A Treasury report to Congress today will reveal a...

Quarter of US Households Have Limited Bank Access

Minorities, low-income families hit hardest

(Newser) - A quarter of US households have little or no access to banks—relying instead on nontraditional services such as check-cashing shops, pawn shops, or payday loans, and often paying exorbitant interest rates. The first comprehensive survey of its kind by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. showed that 71% of families...

Feds Close 9 More Banks
 Feds Close 9 More Banks  
Oct 31, 2009 7:14 AM CDT

Feds Close 9 More Banks

Failures, mostly in west, bring total to 115

(Newser) - Regulators have shut California National Bank of Los Angeles and eight smaller related banks as the weak economy continues to produce a stream of loan defaults. The banks closed yesterday by the FDIC were in California, Illinois, Texas and Arizona. They were divisions of privately held FBOP Corp., a bank...

Dems Slam Bank Overdraft Fees
Dems Slam Bank
Overdraft Fees
Sep 21, 2009 2:34 AM CDT

Dems Slam Bank Overdraft Fees

Banks are set to make $38.5 billion on overdraft fees this year

(Newser) - Washington Democrats are using words like "criminal" and "rip-off" in a round of complaints about banking overdraft fees, reports the Washington Post. US banks are poised to rake in some $38.5 billion from overdraft fees this year, usually without a warning to customers that they're about to...

'Too Big to Fail' Banks Are Only Getting Bigger

Gangbuster results have Treasury fearing moral hazard

(Newser) - Officials plowed hundreds of billions of taxpayers' dollars into financial institutions deemed "too big to fail," but a year later the once-stricken banks are bigger than ever. Thanks to Treasury and Fed-brokered mergers, plus a playing field cleared of the weaker performers, America's financial behemoths are coming out...

Geithner: Wall Street Is Safe Again

(Newser) - The return of hefty profits on Wall Street doesn't mean that banks are returning to previous bad behavior, Tim Geithner insists. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, the Treasury secretary says the big banks are safer now because "they're running with much less leverage," greater liquidity,...

Post-Crisis Wall Street Suffers Convenient Amnesia

With bailouts, Treasury went too easy on financial industry

(Newser) - We keep hearing that “Wall Street as we know it ended” in September 2008, but in fact, “the great upheaval of last fall may not have been severe enough,” writes David Weidner in the Wall Street Journal. The government formed a financial “death panel,” choosing...

US Banks Hiring Again After Layoffs, Bailouts

But headhunting 'selective,' notes banker

(Newser) - After cutting thousands of jobs over the past two years, American banks are rushing to fill them again as business picks up, Reuters reports. “Back in March and April, no one really knew if the investment banking business was going to exist again," said a search firm exec....

Be Very Afraid: Goldman Sachs Is Smiling
Be Very Afraid: Goldman Sachs Is Smiling
OPINION
Jul 15, 2009 7:41 AM CDT

Be Very Afraid: Goldman Sachs Is Smiling

High-risk model hasn't changed, could lead to new crisis, says Reich

(Newser) - Goldman Sachs is back in the black, with trading and stock underwriting revenues at an all-time high—and that should scare you, former Clinton cabinet member Robert Reich writes in Salon. While Goldman's earnings may signal that the current crisis is abating, the bank hasn't modified high-risk strategies that forced...

Feds Probe Shady Market for Derivatives

Banks may have unfair edge in information on credit-default swaps

(Newser) - The Justice Department is probing the market for credit-default swaps, the largely unregulated derivatives that contributed to the financial crisis, Bloomberg reports. Justice is investigating whether big banks have unfair access to price information through their ownership of a private company that provides data to investors. The Obama administration wants...

Troubled Banks Have a New Benefactor: You

Industry hikes fees on checking accounts, overdraft transactions

(Newser) - Your children aren’t the only ones who think you’re an ATM: Your bank does, too. Facing declining revenues and smacked with tough, new credit card legislation from Congress, banks are hiking overdraft, ATM, and checking account fees, the Washington Post reports. The average bounced check fee rose 2....

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