Tag Archives: banking

Wells Fargo Chair Resigns Ahead Of House Testimony

The New York Times reports: Wells Fargo’s chairwoman, Elizabeth A. Duke, has resigned, the bank announced on Monday, bowing to pressure from Washington ahead of what is likely to be another round of grilling from Congress over its history of deceptive consumer practices. Ms. Duke, who is known as Betsy, resigned on Sunday. She had been the bank’s chairwoman since …

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Federal Reserve Cuts Interest Rate Over Virus Impact

NBC News reports: The Federal Reserve announced an emergency rate cut on Tuesday in response to the viral outbreak, trimming the nation’s benchmark borrowing rate by 0.5 percentage points. The move comes after finance ministers from the G-7 convened via teleconference with Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin to determine an economic strategy to defend against …

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Wells Fargo To Pay $3 Billion In Fake Accounts Scandal

The New York Daily News reports: Wells Fargo will pay $3 billion to settle investigations into its long-running scam that had company employees opening millions of bogus bank accounts in order to meet unrealistic sales goals. Since the fake-accounts scandal was revealed in 2016, the San Francisco-based bank has paid out billions in fines to state and federal regulators, reshuffled …

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Forecast: Credit Card Delinquencies Near 10-Year High

Bloomberg News reports: Americans are projected to fall seriously behind on their credit card bills at the highest rate in a decade as banks push a record number of people to get plastic. The share of credit card borrowers who are at least 90 days past due on their accounts will probably tick up to 2.01% next year, the highest …

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Google To Offer Personal Checking Accounts In 2020

Reuters reports: Alphabet Inc’s Google said on Wednesday it will offer personal checking accounts next year through its Google Pay app in partnership with Citigroup Inc and a small credit union at Stanford University. The project, named Cache, comes as rivals Facebook and Apple are expanding their own efforts in consumer finance, a broad area that ranges from digital payment …

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Major Partners Bail From Facebook’s Cryptocurrency

The Associated Press reports: On Friday, Visa and MasterCard announced their departures from the Libra project, as did e-commerce giant eBay and payments startup Stripe. Last week, PayPal became the first major company to drop out of Libra. The exodus comes amid growing — not to mention stronger-than-anticipated — regulatory pushback against Libra in the U.S. and elsewhere. “It’s a …

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Major Bank Raises Recession Risk To 30% In Next Year

CNBC reports: Recession risk is rising, according to Bank of America. Based on the most recent data, the bank’s global economist now sees a greater than 30% chance of a recession in the next year. “Our official model has the probability of a recession over the next 12 months only pegged at about 20%, but our subjective call based on …

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Hacker Arrested In Massive Capital One Data Breach

The New York Times reports: A software engineer in Seattle hacked into a server holding customer information for Capital One and obtained the personal data of over 100 million people, federal prosecutors said on Monday, in one of the largest thefts of data from a bank. The suspect, Paige Thompson, 33, left a trail online for investigators to follow as …

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Wells Fargo To Pay Customers $386M In Class Action Lawsuit Over Unneeded Charges For Auto Insurance

Reuters reports: Wells Fargo & Co will pay at least $386 million to settle class-action claims by customers who said the bank signed them up for auto insurance they did not want or need when they took out car loans. The settlement was disclosed in filings on Thursday with the U.S. District Court in Santa Ana, California, and requires a …

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AOC/Bernie Bill Would Cap Credit Card Interest At 15%

Axios reports: 2020 candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) — both self-declared Democratic-socialists — will introduce a bill on Thursday to prevent credit card interest rates from rising above 15% and capping consumer loans. Credit cards are one of the most insidious forms of indebtedness. By bundling a loan with a very convenient payments device, banks …

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Warren Trolls Chase Bank For Mocking Its Customers

The Hill reports: Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) trolled Chase Bank after the bank’s attempt at sharing personal finance advice on Twitter was met with backlash. Chase’s original tweet, which has since been deleted, was criticized for appearing to mock people for spending money on things like coffee, food and taxis. In response, Warren sent a tweet mocking Chase in part …

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RUSSIA: Bank Owned By Former Republican House Rep Stripped Of License Over Money Laundering Violations

The Charlotte Observer reports: A Russian bank owned by former North Carolina Congressman Charles Taylor has been accused of money laundering and lost its license. The Commercial Bank of Ivanovo “failed on multiple occasions to comply with Bank of Russia regulations” on money laundering “of criminally obtained incomes and the financing of terrorism,” the Bank of Russia said in a …

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Wells Fargo To Pay $575M In Phony Accounts Suit

Bloomberg reports: Wells Fargo will pay $575 million to settle claims made by U.S. states that the bank created phony accounts and committed other customer abuses, according to a statement by the Iowa attorney general’s office. Two years ago, Wells Fargo agreed to pay $190 million to settle federal government claims that the bank created phony customer account, and improperly …

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GERMANY: Police Raid Deutsche Bank Headquarters

The BBC reports: The Frankfurt headquarters of Deutsche Bank have been raided by prosecutors in a money laundering investigation. Germany’s public prosecutor alleged that two staff members have helped clients launder money from criminal activities. Police cars were seen outside the tower blocks that house the headquarters of Germany’s biggest bank. Other Deutsche offices in the city were searched in …

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REPORT: North Korean Hackers Have Stolen Hundreds Of Millions From Banking Systems Of 11 Countries

The Associated Press reports: North Korea’s nuclear and missile tests have stopped, but its hacking operations to gather intelligence and raise funds for the sanction-strapped government in Pyongyang may be gathering steam. U.S. security firm FireEye raised the alarm Wednesday over a North Korean group that it says has stolen hundreds of millions of dollars by infiltrating the computer systems …

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Widespread Visa Card Outage Hits Britain And Europe

The BBC reports: Customers across the UK and Europe have been unable to pay for their purchases with Visa cards because of a network failure. Some shoppers reported they were stuck in queues in supermarkets and petrol stations as Visa transactions could not be processed. Banks have advised customers that they can still withdraw cash from ATMs. Visa says it …

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House Votes To Rollback Dodd-Frank Banking Regs

USA Today reports: The House sent a major revision of banking regulations to President Trump’s desk on Tuesday after conservatives who wanted a more sweeping rollback decided to accept a bipartisan deal crafted by the Senate. Supporters said the bill would give businesses more access to loans for homes and cars that they cannot get now because of government regulations. …

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Gillibrand Bill Pitches Banking At The Post Office

CNBC reports: Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., is proposing legislation aimed at putting an end to current payday lending practices by giving some banking services a new home: the U.S. Post Office. The legislation, called the Postal Banking Act, would make retail banking services available at all U.S. Postal Service locations. That amounts to 30,000 post offices nationwide. Services would include …

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Goldman Sachs Warns Pharma Investors: Cures Don’t Provide Sustained Revenue, Chronic Illness Is Better

Yahoo Finance reports: Goldman Sachs analysts attempted to address a touchy subject for biotech companies, especially those involved in the pioneering “gene therapy” treatment: cures could be bad for business in the long run. “Is curing patients a sustainable business model?” analysts ask in an April 10 report entitled “The Genome Revolution.” “The potential to deliver ‘one shot cures’ is …

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Latest Manafort Indictment Could Reel In Banks

The Associated Press reports: Recently filed federal charges against President Donald Trump’s ex-campaign chairman Paul Manafort could also pose legal and regulatory risks for the banks that loaned him millions of dollars against his New York real estate in recent years. The most serious exposure may be for a Rhode Island-based bank that employed a “conspirator” in Manafort’s scheme to …

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