Receiving Wide Coverage ...
Two heads...: JPMorgan Chase said Mark Leung, head of its Asia Pacific equities business since 2014, and Jason Sippel, global head of prime services, will together run the bank's global equities division. The two replace Tim Throsby, who left to run Barclays' corporate and international division. Wall Street Journal, Financial Times
Wall Street Journal
Sanctions coming: Wells Fargo, which has always prided itself on its ability to cross-sell banking products to its customers, according to the paper, is about to be sanctioned by federal regulators for how it goes about doing that. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the Los Angeles City Attorney, which has sued the bank for allegedly overly aggressive sales tactics, are expected to make an announcement Thursday. Regulators and prosecutors investigated whether the bank encouraged its employees to use questionable tactics to meet sales goals.
SoFi seeking more equity: Social Finance is working to raise about $500 million in equity to fund new lending initiatives. The online marketplace lender, better known as SoFi, is looking to expand its student loan business to Europe. It also wants to diversify into credit cards, deposit-taking, insurance and wealth management. The equity sale comes at a challenging time for the once-burgeoning industry. The sector has been hampered by slowing growth and a loan disclosure scandal at Lending Club.
Pity the lawyers: JPMorgan's exclusive private bank has closed to some corporate lawyers. The bank, which in March doubled the minimum asset requirement to $10 million, is no longer letting top lawyers in if they don't meet the requirement, although it used to. "The exact number of lawyers losing perks couldn't be determined, but the changes could be interpreted as an effective snub of legal advisers from partners to lower-level associates," the Journal said. "While many are paid well, only a small percentage of lawyers have the $10 million minimum that J.P. Morgan's private bank is rolling out."
Credit unions go to school: Credit unions, if modestly, are getting bigger in the private student loan market. According to a report from LendKey Technologies, which provides a platform for student loan originations, about 275 financial institutions, mostly credit unions, are on pace to make $221 million in student loans over the two years ending this December 31. While that doesn't sound like a whole lot, it would be 50% more than they did in the two-year period ended in 2014. The National Credit Union Administration reported Tuesday that $3.6 billion in outstanding private student loans were on credit unions' books at the end of the second quarter, up about 9% from the prior year. Navy Federal Credit Union, which is also the largest U.S. credit union by assets, was the largest student loan originator, according to LendKey. Our sister publication Credit Union Journal explains why credit unions see student loans as a lucrative market.
Blockchain as art: Two art exhibits attempt to decipher the meaning of blockchain. On Thursday, Simon Denny's "Blockchain Future States" opens at New York's Petzel Gallery. A similar show, "Blockchain Visionaries," runs through September 18 in Berlin. Denny uses everyday objects like Pokémon, postage stamps and the board game Risk "to illuminate how technology shapes the way we live and work." The artist said he wasn't particularly interested in blockchain until last year, when banks and other firms started to invest more time and money to develop the technology to improve their business operations. "I became interested in how different people with different types of agendas are invested in the future of what this could be," Denny said.
New York Times
Who's afraid of subprime?: Caliber Home Loans, the subprime mortgage unit of Lone Star Funds, said it is close to bringing to market an issue of securities backed by loans to people with shaky credit, one of the few such issues to come to market since the global financial crisis. "The recent activity from Lone Star and Caliber may be the clearest sign of a nascent revival in a corner of the mortgage market that most big United States banks have not dared to touch," the Times noted. Big banks are instead focusing their efforts on jumbo mortgages and loans to people with high credit scores.
