banks

It’s a big day for banks: The Obama administration is expected to unveil new “too big to fail” proposals for dealing with troubled financial giants, Reuters reports. The proposals would “give the government the power to dismantle large financial companies that get into crises.”
The new draft bill is expected to take a tougher stance toward [...]

The PBS star attracted crowds to what appeared on the surface as a way to help black borrowers build wealth, but a lawsuit alleges it was actually just the opposite.

Appearing on Wall Street today, President Obama accused some of the nation’s financial institutions of “misreading” the economy’s nascent recovery, and urged Congress to pass strict new banking regulations to prevent the industry’s “reckless behavior” from spurring another economic collapse.
We will not go back to the days of reckless behavior and unchecked excess that [...]

Here’s a fascinating exchange between Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), chairman of the House Financial Services subpanel on housing, and Mary Coffin, executive vice president of Wells Fargo’s mortgage servicing division, during yesterday’s hearing to examine how effectively the administration’s voluntary mortgage modification program is preventing foreclosures. (Not very, it turns out.) The [...]

Even as some of Congress’ recently enacted credit card reforms go into effect today, a New York Times editorial reminds Washington that the banks are still cheating customers with overdraft fees charged to debit card users. These fees, which average $27 a pop, are slapped on consumers when purchases exceed account balances, regardless [...]

As voluntary mortgage modifications have failed to keep pace with foreclosures, House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank (D-Mass.) said Wednesday that it might be time to bring back the stick of bankruptcy reform. That proposal, which would empower homeowners to escape foreclosure through bankruptcy, was passed in the House in March, but didn’t survive [...]

Less than two weeks after Goldman Sachs posted record quarterly profits, some congressional lawmakers are wondering if the Wall Street giant isn’t taking dangerous risks in its investment strategy — risks similar to those that led to the recent financial collapse.
In a letter today to Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, 10 House lawmakers are asking [...]

Congressional Democrats — the same Democrats who delayed implementation of their credit card reform bill for nine months — just didn’t anticipate that the country’s credit card issuers would race to exploit that postponement by hiking rates in the meantime.
Or did they?
In a letter today to the Federal Reserve and other key financial regulators, Senate [...]

Public protections against fraud hang in the balance over the upcoming SEC budget battle.

Via Patrick.net, here’s more about how some banks abandoned their foreclosed properties and left innocent neighbors to deal with the blight. And no, this isn’t just happening in Cleveland. In Petaluma, Calif.,  one neighbor got so fed up fighting with Bank of America– for two years — to clean up the abandoned home next door [...]