BankThink

Receiving Wide Coverage ...Unease with Easing: How low can interest rates go? Maybe no lower than where they are now.

What the FHA calls its "capital" actually includes claims about what it might earn in the future. Bankers would get laughed at for trying the same ploy.

Banks have been granted more time to comply with new restrictions on swaps activities by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.

The bank should have recognized that the borrower's conditions had changed, and so should the conditions of the credit change, accordingly.

Small banks continue to rake in revenue from interchange fees on debit cards, despite fears that the Durbin amendment would hurt them as much as larger institutions, according to a report released by the Federal Trade Commission.

Chairmen of the House Financial Services Committee requested to postpone the Volcker Rule until 2015 only three weeks after U.S. regulators said they would delay the Jan. 1 start date for new capital requirements.

Securitization is essentially a financial production factory. Consistency in the manufacturing process, which minimizes defects and hence promotes investor interest in the product, would allow the business to prosper again.

Receiving Wide Coverage ...The Fiscal, Uh, Valley: The budget deal reached at the beginning of this year extends an obscure but important tax break for U.S. banks that do business overseas, according to the FT. Under the "subpart F exception for active financing income" (rolls off the tongue, don't it?), income earned on certain transactions outside U.S. borders is taxed only when brought back into the country. The exception was introduced in the late 1990s as a "temporary" measure, but it's been extended every few years since. The latest extension is forecast to cost the Treasury some $9 billion this year. Megabank lobbyists argued, as lobbyists often do, that continuing the relief was necessary for U.S. companies to remain competitive with foreign firms taxed at lower rates. We suspect this news may rub salt in the wounds of some community bankers, in light of Congress' failure to similarly renew the also-originally-temporary TAG program, which expired at yearend. The big banks are in good company, though: "Hollywood, the railroad industry and rum producers" also retained tax breaks as part of the budget deal according to the Times. And the drama isn't even over yet: "Fresh Budget Fights Brewing," says the Journal); "Lawmakers Gird for Next Fiscal Clash, on the Debt Ceiling," per the Times. The Journal's "Heard on the Street" column warns investors that Wednesday's relief rally may be premature. The same point, more or less, is made in the Post: "Business leaders say the agreement won't ease economic uncertainty and warn that the market gains could evaporate once lawmakers move on to the next battle over raising the federal borrowing limit." On the Journal editorial page, economist Martin Feldstein faults the Fed's bond-buying program for (among other things) keeping long-term rates low and thus taking the pressure off Congress and the president to deal with deficits.

Have you ever caught yourself paying a $3 ATM fee to avoid driving across town? Add up the value of your time, gasoline costs, the need to complete a necessary task and it's easy to justify that $3.

The Congressional agenda for 2013 will include lawmakers overseeing implementation of the Dodd-Frank Act and possible advances on housing finance reform.