BankThink

The bank isn't just a place to store your money. It's a place to store your data under lock and key, but available to all those with permission to use it.

Receiving Wide Coverage ...SAC Sacked: Federal prosecutors are expected to announce criminal charges this week against hedge-fund giant SAC Capital Advisors for alleged insider trading, the papers are reporting through anonymous sources. The Times says such a charge would likely be a "death blow" to the firm already saddled with government investigations, potentially causing trading partners like Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley to pull out. The papers also focused on the firm's founder, Steven A. Cohen, who is not expected to be charged by prosecutors in the multiyear probe. But fear not. Cohen is scheduled to face off with the Securities and Exchange Commission in August for not properly overseeing two traders charged with insider trading. Perhaps he would have known had he read his email.

Until banks' RWA disclosures improve and become more uniform globally, capital ratios will remain a mystery to many journalists, investors, banks and even some supervisors.

The Corker-Warner bill and House GOP bill both understand that the fundamental GSE model is insidious and needs to be definitively terminated.

Securing an economically and fiscally sensible approach to housing finance reform is taking a backseat to entrenched political views on both sides of the aisle.

With the July 16 confirmation of Richard Cordray, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is prepared to take an aggressive step forward in its third year.

Our model must change to reduce embedded friction, whether in the form of fees or complicated processes. We must keep up with the simplicity, usability and transparency customers now demand.

Receiving Wide Coverage ...Warehouse Probe: The Commodity Futures Trading Commission is examining the warehouse operations used by Goldman Sachs and others for the storage of aluminum that has inflated prices to consumers, the New York Times reports Tuesday. The operations were the subject of a Times story Sunday. The CFTC has told Goldman and other firms to hold on to internal documents and emails, hardly a good sign. The Journal weighs in, claiming banks have retreated from physical commodities markets even as Goldman, JPMorgan Chase and Morgan Stanley are cited for buying up oil pipelines, metal warehouses and power plants. A Senate committee is holding a hearing Tuesday on bank ownership of commodity assets, raising concerns that loose regulations have allowed banks to control the storage and shipment of commodities. The question is whether such activities pose a risk to the financial system. Senior officials at the Federal Reserve have discussed with bank executives whether to bar them outright from owning physical commodity assets, the Financial Times says.

Banks must throw away their traditional thinking and acting like the newcomers in the business.

Three years after the passage of the Dodd-Frank Act, regulators are quick to assent with one another on one thing: coming to an agreement over joint rules has become quite the obstacle.