A recap of the informed opinions (and the discussions they generated) on BankThink this week.

Reducing the number of Home Loan banks would lower the cost of advances for community banks, leaving them with more money to lend out to their communities.

Breaking News This Morning ... Earnings: Wells Fargo Receiving Wide Coverage ... Alibaba IPO Looms: Chinese e-commerce firm Alibaba plans to hold its initial public offering within the next few weeks, according to the Wall Street Journal. Alibaba's hotly anticipated IPO could raise more than $20 billion. The Financial Times takes a more dramatic approach to the news: Alibaba's "self-imposed deadline is in danger of slipping as the company gets close to the moment when it will have…

Large bank holding companies defy both effective management and effective regulation. The solution is to allow shareholders of each company's subsidiary to choose its management and judge its performance.

Push notifications offer banks and credit card issuers a unique way to communicate with a generation that's skeptical of the financial industry but fond of technology and hungry for deals.

Receiving Wide Coverage ...

The End of Bond Buying: The Federal Reserve will likely end its bond-buying program in October, according to minutes from the central bank's June policy meeting. The Fed minutes say that the decision "should not be interpreted as evidence that rate increases were likely to begin sooner," according to the New York Times. The Times focuses on Fed officials' cautious economic outlook, reporting that many remain concerned about unemployment, sluggish economic output…

Banks can increase the efficiency of their mortgage businesses by requiring loan officers to generate leads from outside referral sources and assigning officers only to branches in markets with high origination potential.

A new report from the Basel Committee says that using public funds to resolve weak banks may be considered in systemic situations. If even capital rule-writers are willing to consider more bailouts, the only way to end "too big to fail" may be to break up the megabanks.

Receiving Wide Coverage ... Citi, DOJ Said Close to $7B Deal: Citigroup and the Justice Department are reportedly nearing a deal in which the bank would pay roughly $7 billion to end a probe of the mortgage-backed securities it sold in the years preceding the financial crisis. The expected price tag appears to be a victory for the U.S. government. The DOJ, which was seeking up to a $10 billion settlement earlier this summer, had threatened…

Unless we return the Farm Credit System to its original mission, taxpayers could be on the hook for a bailout in the near future and farmers’ access to credit could be reduced, writes Rep. Marlin Stutzman.

The CFPB should prohibit financial institutions from reordering transactions to maximize overdraft fees, require that fees be proportional to a bank’s costs to provide the loan and ban providers of prepaid cards from offering overdraft loans altogether, according to Susan Weinstock of The Pew Charitable Trusts.

Receiving Wide Coverage ... U.S. Trains Sights on Commerzbank: U.S. regulators are accusing another European bank of violating U.S. economic sanctions after striking an $8.9 billion deal with French lender BNP Paribas over the same charge last week. Germany's Commerzbank is on the hot seat for allegedly doing business with companies in Iran and Sudan, according to the New York Times. Because Germany owns 17% of Commerzbank, the Times wonders whether "settlement talks could inflame diplomatic…

Many small banks lack the resources to make necessary investments in cybersecurity. One solution could be to institute regional centers that would allow banks to pool resources, train staff and investigate potential breaches.

A disparate-impact ruling against a small Texas bank was supposed to lower the cost of small-dollar loans for Hispanic borrowers, but it has instead had the opposite effect, writes Attorney Peter Weinstock.

Receiving Wide Coverage ... Debating the Export-Import Bank: Supporters of the Export-Import Bank are fighting back against the House Republicans who want to scrap it. Each member of Congress will receive in the coming weeks, "a personalized index card laying out exactly which companies in their districts benefit from the financing agency and how many people they employ" according to the Wall Street Journal. Companies including General Electric and Boeing, along with industry groups such as…