Category: banking

The Commercial Loan Nightmare Facing U.S. Banks

Posted by: Mara Der Hovanesian on November 05

Banks are in for another ugly year in 2010. But this time the problem will be the big batch of deteriorating commercial real estate loans on their books. That’s because…

Weekend reading: Georgia Bank Failures Explained

Posted by: Peter Carbonara on October 09

Documents produced by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation are not, generally speaking, gripping page-turners. One genre of regulatory report, however, does make for fairly interesting reading: “Material Loss Reviews” prepared…

New Guard at Morgan Stanley Marks End of an Era

Posted by: Mara Der Hovanesian on September 11

John Mack and Morgan Stanley have shared a few near-death experiences over the years. Mack, who will leave his post as CEO at the end of the year, is hailed…

TARP Bank CEOs Cash In

Posted by: Mara Der Hovanesian on August 03

So much for pay-for-performance reform. A new study by Presidio Pay Advisors, a San Francisco-based compensation consulting firm, looked closely at the 115 publicly traded banks’ compensation programs and found…

Banks Hurt More By Liar Loans Than Secondary Market Investors

Posted by: Mara Der Hovanesian on July 21

Here’s a surprising bit of research coming out of study by some Columbia University professors: Banks lowered their standards on underwriting because they assumed they’d push the risk and iffy…

The Same Old Tricks at Goldman Sachs

Posted by: Adrienne Carter on July 14

It’s another banner quarter for Goldman Sachs, the storied investment bank and one of the few left standing. On July 14, the company reported earnings of $3.4 billion, up 65%…

Boutique Banks Steal Share From Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and the Like

Posted by: Jessica Silver-Greenberg on July 13

There’s a surprising shake-out in the world of mergers and acquisitions. In the new M&A environment where small niche deals have supplanted the mega-deals of years past, relationships matter. That…

With Securitization Down and Out, Home Prices Will Falter

Posted by: Mara Der Hovanesian on June 11

Big banks keep making big noises at any opportunity about how they’re doing their bit to keep the economy going and making new loans. MBS analyst Laurie Goodman at Amherst…

Bank Stress Tests: The Government Isn’t Going Far Enough

Posted by: Mara Der Hovanesian on June 09

There are a couple of things that strike me as odd and even disturbing about the new congressional oversight report on the recent bank stress tests. First, the “adverse scenario”…

How Mark-to-Model Rules Are Killing The Government’s Plan to Buy Banks Bad Assets

Posted by: Adrienne Carter on June 04

Is the government putting off the day of reckoning? The Wall Street Journal has a great story yesterday on how lobbyists pushed Congress to change the accounting rules. According to…

No More Cards for Tots

Posted by: Matthew Goldstein on May 20

There’s a lot to like about the long overdue credit card reform bill. The measure will make it more difficult for banks to take advantage of consumers by jacking-up interest…

The $1 Trillion Question

Posted by: Adrienne Carter on April 24

The results of the “stress tests”—the parameters for which came out on Apr. 24—may not be all that terrible when the government finally releases them in early May. But many…

Is Millennium Bank Too Good to Be True?

Posted by: Adrienne Carter on February 17

Matt Goldstein’s recent stories about Stanford Financial Group, which detail the investigations into the high-flying firm that boasts CDs with rates doubled the market average and assets of more than…