Don't Think of It as Losing a Co-COO, Think of It as Gaining a Sole COO

Receiving Wide Coverage ...

Another Shake-Up at JPMorgan: Frank Bisignano is leaving the bank to run First Data and Matt Zames will add responsibilities as sole chief operating officer, a title he has shared with Bisignano since July. Bisignano and JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon go back a long way, having worked together at Citi during the Weill era. The Journal casts the departure as a significant blow to the bank, starting with the headline ("Dimon Loses…"). Amid JPMorgan's numerous operational and regulatory challenges, the article notes, "Bisignano is the ninth executive since early last year to exit Mr. Dimon's operating committee, an elite group that represents all of the firm's key decision makers." The FT offers a more optimistic take (headline: "JPMorgan promotes Zames"; first sentence: "Jamie Dimon, chief executive of JPMorgan Chase, reshuffled his executive team…"). We link, you decide. Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, New York Times, American Banker

Wall Street Journal

Rep. John Campbell, R-Calif., demands that the CFPB rescind guidance requiring indirect auto lenders to guess the race, ethnicity and gender of loan applicants from their names and addresses. "Put bluntly, they want lenders to profile you," Campbell, who chairs a House Banking subcommittee, writes in an op-ed. The CFPB "would like lenders to use stereotypes associated with your name and location in order to monitor compliance with equal-opportunity requirements. Does that mean a person named Jefferson who lives in the Bronx is to be presumed an African-American, but not a Jefferson in Wichita? Is Taylor Rosenstein living in Miami a woman or a man? He or she must certainly be Jewish, right? What I just wrote is absurd and looks offensive. But it is exactly what the CFPB's advice would effectively require." Auto lenders who find such guesswork awkward might ask their counterparts in the mortgage world for advice, since they have faced similar requirements under the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (see the second item in this old column).

New York Times

"Predatory Lenders" — An editorial supports regulators' crackdown on payday loan-like deposit advance products.

"Trying to Slam the Bailout Door" — Columnist Gretchen Morgenson makes a black-and-white case for the Brown-Vitter bill.

Washington Post

"Big banks cutting billions from reserve funds" — They're talking about loan-loss reserve releases. First mention of accounting rules is in the thirteenth paragraph.