Deutsche's Loss Sparks Fears

Receiving Wide Coverage ...

Deutsche's Loss: Germany's Deutsche Bank AG surprised investors with a $1.35 billion fourth-quarter loss, signaling that European financial institutions might be having trouble competing with U.S. institutions since European banks face tougher regulation. European banks face further scrutiny from regulators, who are working to tamp down the continent's banking crisis, with another round of examinations set to be finished by the end of the year. The Basel Committee on Banking Supervision has forced banks to put aside capital in case of emergency, and has caused banks to sell assets. The bank's co-chief executives Anshu Jain and Jurgen Fitschen suggest 2014 will be a "turning point," according to the Times, while the Journal says they are appealing for more time to shape up the bank ahead of what they anticipate will be another tough year. But whether progress achieved so far is enough to give investors the inclination to be patient is another matter all together. Deutsche Bank's shareholders are even more alarmed about a multibillion-euro litigation now that the German lender revealed deep quarterly losses. Senior executives at the bank have been trying to convince investors that they have enough cash earmarked to cover potential legal payouts. Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Financial Times

FBI Probe: The Federal Bureau of Investigations late last year interviewed a former senior J.P.Morgan & Co. executive about a foreign bribery investigation, according to the Journal. Gaby Abdelnour, a former regional head of Asia, was interviewed while at John F. Kennedy International Airport. The interview was first reported by Bloomberg News. Meanwhile, Klaus Diederichs, a 34-year veteran of JPMorgan, who has been on the longest-serving deal bankers, is stepping down, the bank announced. The bank also said it will not participate in a $1 billion Hong Kong listing of a Chinese chemical company due to the investigation into the U.S. bank's hiring of relatives of high-ranking foreign officials. This is the second time the New York-based firm has left a role in an initial public offering because the probe.

Wall Street Journal

The Federal Reserve appears poised to reduce the pace of its controversial bond buying program to $65 billion a month from the current $75 billion program it announced in December, according to the Journal. Fed policymakers agreed to take the first step at the end of last month to trim their asset purchases by $10 billion, but they may be inclined to do so once again during outgoing Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke's last meeting.

Financial Times

A German transport authority is alleging that JPMorgan Chase "knew" or "ought to have known" that it was "naive in the world of complex credit derivatives," according to court documents. The claims are tied to a trial in which JPMorgan is suing Berlin's transport authority for $204 million over a collateralized debt obligation that the German authority took out in 2007. The firm in question, BVG, was to pay JPM if companies covered by the CDO defaulted. BVG got a $6 million premium for its efforts. But, when defaults came into play, BVG refused to pay JPM, claiming the bank's advice on the CDO was poor.

Wells Fargo & Co. is banning employees from lending their own money through peer-to-peer loan platforms. Yet another signal of the growing tension between banks and peer-to-peer platforms.

New York Times

Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Eric Schneiderman, New York State's attorney general reached a deal on how to divide a big piece of the $613 million the state received as part of a securities settlement with JPMorgan Chase. Top officials decided to split the fund, half to the attorney general's office to be spent on preventing foreclosure, and the rest would go to the state's general fund to be spent on housing-related programs.

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