BankThink

The Federal Reserve Board's yearly stress-test exercise will be broadened next year to include 11 more bank holding companies.

Governments need to consider the advantages of a good bank-bad bank restructuring while loan assets currently have determinable and probably higher values than earlier in the crisis.

Our contributors have presented their ideas on how tomorrow's banks can offer customers value and make money for the long haul. Now it's time to share yours.

Receiving Wide Coverage ...U.S. Versus SAC, Tourre: Papers remain focused on the ongoing civil trial of former Goldman Sachs trader Fabrice Tourre and the expected insider trading criminal charges against hedge-fund giant SAC Capital Advisors, which could be filed any minute now. Dealbook's latest article on the SAC charges says "the marshaled might of law enforcement," which includes representatives from the Securities and Exchange Commission, the FBI, postal inspectors and the Justice Department, "signaled that the government was no longer interested in just monetary settlements." And the Journal echoes a sentiment from an earlier Times article: the charges could mean the end of SAC. "No major financial firm has survived a criminal indictment," the paper notes. As for the Tourre trial, the sometimes "Fabulous", sometimes "Breezy" former trader took the stand for the first time Wednesday. Per Dealbook, "Tourre seemed exasperated on the stand, and at one point during the questioning, tipped over the water container on the witness stand while reaching for a document." He also admitted that an email he sent to a key player in the investment deal at the heart of the case was "not accurate," which, based on some verbal sparring that took place between him and the prosecutor, is apparently different from being "false." Legal experts tell the Washington Post that Tourre's testimony, expected to continue today, "could make or break his case."

The debate over the Warren-McCain bill should start by correcting some popular misunderstandings.

Politicians who blindly supported restrictive AML guidelines now proclaim disgust as a global bank severs relationships with firms that send money to Somalia. But Barclays is merely exercising understandable caution.

They may comprise the greatest fighting force in the history of armed services, but today's U.S. military find themselves to be no different than their fellow Americans when it comes to Congress and the laws governing the federal budget.

Recent research by the Société historique Alphonse-Desjardins turned up a little-known U.S. publication in which Alphonse Desjardins played a discreet but important role.

Even free-marketeers must recognize initial conditions. The markets we have today are set up to invest in government-guaranteed mortgage-backed securities. To remove the guarantee without crippling damage would take decades.

The Financial Stability Oversight Council, designed under the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act to identify risks to the stability of the financial system, labeled Prudential Financial as a risky nonbank financial company last Thursday.