Hal Singer at Lever News wrote a commentary explaining how banks (mostly) are upset with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau capping credit card late fees at $8. One would think this covers every bank. It does not and only covers banks with more than 1 million card holders. Any bank or organization with less customers […]

Think Progress points us to a study by Citizens for Tax Justice on what industries receive tax subsidies by amount and percentage, with pages of how data was compiled at the end.

Think Progress points us to …the Credit Union National Association (CUNA) reports that a whopping 650,000 Americans have joined credit unions since Sept. 29 — the date that Bank of America announced it would start charging a $5 monthly debit fee, a move it backed down on this week. To put that in perspective, there […]

by Linda Beale Banks, repos and transparency in accounting A repo transaction is essentially a collateralized financing. For tax purposes, everybody knows that it will be treated as a loan, no matter that it is called a “sale” with an agreement for a repurchase later. For accounting purposes, though, some repo transactions have been able […]

I was trying to avoid mentioning this, partially because I half-suspected it was deliberately over the top, and I’m not reading tone well these days. After all: Virtually every BHC has elected to become an FHC. Under 12 U.S.C. § 1843(k)(4)(H), FHCs are allowed to make “merchant banking investments” in nonfinancial companies, on a principal […]

OCC press release WASHINGTON Feb. 14, 2008 — Comptroller of the Currency John C. Dugan issued the following statement today, responding to comments from New York Governor Eliot Spitzer:Almost everyone who has paid attention to the subprime lending crisis has concluded that OCC-regulated national banks were not the problem. Instead, the worst abuses came from […]