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

Zions Bancorp. in Salt Lake City has raised roughly $301 million by selling preferred stock.

The chairman/CEO split issue is a sideshow. No one has considered the troubling implications of a large, misguided bet that happened to pay off the year before the London Whale losses.

The return to profitability of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is not a reason to preserve them as part of a future housing finance system.

The Federal Reserve announced an enforcement action against the Bank of Montreal and BMO Financial for "deficiencies" in compliance with anti-money laundering and Bank Secrecy Act rules and regulations.

Receiving Wide Coverage ... Deriving Pleasure: Too many price quotes will increase trading costs and reduce liquidity. That is the curious (if not spurious) story megabanks successfully stuck to in lobbying financial regulators to water down a key provision of the Dodd-Frank Act aimed at governing derivatives trading. The result was a 4-to-1 vote by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission on Thursday in favor of reducing the number of price quotes buyers must seek before conducting…

Loan performance data show the entire case against GSE underwriting standards, and their role in the financial crisis, is based on social stereotyping, smoke and mirrors, and little else.

Whatever the outcome of Tuesday's vote over Jamie Dimon's dual titles at JPMorgan Chase, the debate raging at the country's largest bank will increase the pressure on bank boards to split up chairman/CEO roles in the future.

Former Citigroup CEO Vikram Pandit has taken a stake in India's JM Financial Group, which also plans to name him chairman of a proposed new bank.

The latest monthly reports from credit card issuers provide more evidence that loss rates will stay abnormally low longer than thought just a few months ago.

Receiving Wide Coverage ... Aw Mom, JPMorgan Again? Yes, kids, but today's meatloaf is spicy. Broadridge, the firm counting JPMorgan shareholder votes on the resolution to sever the CEO and chairman jobs, has stopped providing running tallies to the investors sponsoring the proposal, the Times reports. Broadridge says it did so at the behest of SIFMA, the Wall Street trade group, whose members are the firm's clients. SIFMA told the Times that "one of its working…

The common-sense steps taken in the bill will help even the playing field between community banks and big financial firms.

Wells Fargo must pay customers $203 million for manipulating debit-card transactions to boost overdraft fees, a federal judge in San Francisco ruled, reinstating a 2010 damage award.

Consumer advocates believe the bounties banks pay to car dealers for steering customers to high-interest loans are abusive. But with a ban likely to spark a political backlash, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is instead seeking to prove the markups are discriminatory.

Since being forced out of Bank of America in 2011, Krawcheck has been talking a lot about the business case for gender diversity on boards and in top management. Now she's putting her money where her mouth is — and hopes other women will, too.