The Year in Quotes — Pt. 3
November 30, 2011 11:53 AM
"What I worry about at night is there are five companies that are going to negotiate on the rest of our behalf, not only a settlement but the future rules of servicing."
Richard Davis, chairman and CEO of U.S. Bancorp, about ongoing settlement talks between state attorneys general and top mortgage servicers
"If you're under no stress, your credit quality is acceptable, you got enough capital — a lot of those companies just don't seem to have any interest in selling. Pricing is bad, so they want to wait until pricing gets better if they're going to sell."
Christopher Carey, chief financial officer of the $23 billion-asset City National Corp. of Los Angeles
"It's not without some emotion."
Irene Dorner, president and CEO of HSBC USA, said of selling off profitable businesses and bank branches
"While Congress instructed us to consider the extent to which a proposed acquisition would pose a greater risk to financial stability, it clearly did not instruct us to reject an acquisition simply because there would be any increase in such risks."
Daniel Tarullo, governor, Federal Reserve Board, on concerns a merger could create another "too big to fail" institution
"We don't know how bad off the banks really are and they might get worse off from here if home prices continue to fall."
Robert J. Shiller, a Yale University economist and the namesake of the closely watched Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller home price indexes
"I won't have a reporting relationship with the Treasury. I don't need to talk to them. I am not an employee or a contractor of the Treasury."
John Poelker, who was assigned by the Treasury Department to the board of First Banks Inc. in Clayton, Mo., after that company missed at least six consecutive dividend payments on its Tarp money
"In the past, being a board member meant coming in once a month, you have dinner, you do your thing. Now it is three and a half hour meetings with lots of work before and after. It has gone from being an honor to serve to a huge responsibility to serve."
Susan O'Donnell, a managing director at Pearl Meyer & Partners LLC, an executive search firm, on serving on a bank board
"Two years ago, over a third of the population [of bank card security professionals] said that EMV would never get here. I would have been one."
Julie Conroy McNelley, a senior risk and fraud analyst at Aite Group LLC, reacting to Visa's incentive plan to fast-track merchant acceptance of chip cards in the U.S.
"It's one thing to not have the documents you're supposed to have even though you told investors and the SEC you had them. … But they're making up new documents."
Lynn E. Szymoniak, a plaintiff's lawyer in West Palm Beach, Fla.
"Consumer finance is a $20 trillion business, and you should not pretend that every actor in the business is playing by the rules. If there is not adequate enforcement, you should not expect rules to be abided by."
Raj Date, acting director, CFPB
"We're dismayed there are over 200 pages just in the preamble, which suggests that the details of the regulation itself are going to be some multiples of that."
Wayne Abernathy, the director of regulatory affairs and financial institutions policy at the American Bankers Association, on the release of the Volcker Rule
"We have not and are not considering any kind of fee. We think that would penalize our clients."
Rick Waddell, chairman and CEO of Northern Trust Corp., questioning rival Bank of New York Mellon's decision to charge clients for holding large deposits
"The deadweight of the real estate market's huge REO inventory and the late-stage delinquencies are dragging the nation's economy under water."
Lewis S. Ranieri, mortgage industry veteran and pioneer of the mortgage-backed security
"My concern every day that I open the doors is wondering who is going to punch us in the head legislatively or through regulation and stop us from serving our customers."
Craig Meader, chairman and CEO, First National Bank of Kansas
"There's an enormous amount that needs to be fixed."
Arianna Huffington, founder of The Huffington Post
