BankThink

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Home Depot told shareholders that interchange price controls would add "$35 million a year" to the bottom line. Why should consumers now believe the company has chosen not to keep these newfound gains for itself?

If a bank doesn't disclose what it's not charging, someone might assume it is charging that fee without disclosing. Pew Charitable Trusts made that assumption, and says consumers could too.

Receiving Wide Coverage ...Europe, Again: On Sunday, Greece will hold elections that may determine whether the troubled country stays in the Eurozone. European governments are fearful that the election results could spark another round of financial market turmoil. The U.K. said it plans to flood its banks with cheap money to protect the British financial system from the continent’s worsening problems. The European Central Bank’s president, Mario Draghi, said it stands ready to intervene if needed. Amid all of this, we were amazed by a Tweet this morning from the doomsday-trader blog ZeroHedge pointing out that the London Interbank Offered Rate had not changed for 21 days straight. Granted, this morning’s three-month LIBOR was nearly double the year-earlier level, according to Bloomberg, but is it plausible that no bank’s short-term borrowing costs have appreciably risen in recent weeks, given all that’s been going on? (e.g. in Spain and Italy)? Your Morning Scan will entertain rational explanations and give the benefit of the doubt to the banks that report their hypothetical borrowing costs for the British Bankers Association’s LIBOR survey.

We need a system in which credit bureaus are required to sell consumer data at a uniform price to any company with permission to access it, instead of pricing out perceived competitive threats or withholding the information.

The constant criticism from Congress just makes the rulemaking process longer without adding much to the debate.

We need stronger cross-border regulatory enforcement to spot U.S firms going to London for looser rules. Guess what MF Global, Lehman, AIG and the London Whale have in common.