Bank of America said it would pay $33 million to settle an SEC complaint that it misled shareholders regarding $5.8 billion in bonuses paid to Merrill employees.
Sunday 26 July 2009 22:41 | Simon Johnson | 192 comments
...the American Bankers Association, the Financial Services Roundtable and other interest groups should switch their positions and support the consumer protection agency — if they really want consumer confidence in financial products and in general to return. -- Simon Johnson, former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund. in The New York Times
House committee chairs overseeing U.S. funding to the International Monetary Fund and World Bank warned President Barack Obama that future appropriations to the global lending agencies could be jeopardized by his refusal to honor restrictions placed on that funding.
Federal Reserve Chair Bernanke warned against legislation that would permit Congress to audit sensitive monetary policy functions, saying it would diminish Fed independence and increase worries about inflation.
Federal banking regulators need to look into whether financial institutions are inflating the value of second mortgages, thus holding up government-supported efforts to restructure mortgage loans and prevent foreclosures, top legislators said.
Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) wants the Federal Reserve to include “opt-in” protection in the final version of its Regulation E governing overdrafts.
Banks seeking to return bailout money must demonstrate the ability to raise new equity capital and must also fulfill a number of longer term expectations on managing their capital requirements, the Federal Reserve said.
Major indicators of asset quality at U.S. banks continued to deteriorate in the first quarter, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. said in its quarterly report on the banking system.
The U.S. economy may not be in for a “lost decade” after all, according to one expert on Japan who sees significant differences between the current situation in the United States and that which faced Japan in the 1990s.
