BankThink

S&P is placing greater emphasis on the country where a bank operates. We believe capital is at most neutral to a slight weakness for the ratings in the U.S. and Europe.

Addressing the home mortgage meltdown, Congressman Scott Garrett recently introduced legislation that is, as American Banker put it, "designed to draw the private sector back to the secondary-mortgage market after the troubled GSEs are terminated."

A card-skimming device is only convincing if it stays stuck to the ATM.

Shouldn't it be a given that an agency staffed with green examiners and tasked with enforcing new rules will communicate with banks before slapping them with regulatory orders?

A health-care organization that was in the process of encrypting its data let one computer get away – and put the personal data of 3.3 million patients at risk.

Receiving Wide Coverage ...Occupying the Streets: Thousands of Occupy Wall Street protestors took to the streets of Manhattan, attempting to delay the opening of the New York Stock Exchange and making their presence felt among commuters on the subway trains and Brooklyn Bridge. The "National Day of Action" marked the movement's two-month anniversary and came several days after the demonstrators were evicted from Zuccotti Park. The atmosphere was tense and sometimes violent as some demonstrators clashed with police. A handful of people were injured, and several hundred were arrested. There were similar but smaller marches in other cities across the country, with similar dust-ups. New York Times, New York Post, Daily News (New York), Village Voice, Wall Street Journal, Financial Times

The federal government could avoid many unnecessary bank failures by making targeted preferred equity investments in community banks with a Camels 3 rating.

Why go on a shopping spree when you can go on a "skimming spree"?

Receiving Wide Coverage ...The Fitch-Slap: "Unless the Eurozone debt crisis is resolved in a timely and orderly manner, the broad credit outlook for the U.S. banking industry could worsen." This warning Wednesday from the credit rating agency Fitch sparked a sharp sell-off in financial stocks late in the trading session. Fitch left its ratings for banks unchanged but said the "risks of a negative shock are rising." Wall Street Journal, Business Insider, Bloomberg

The Treasury and the banking industry would like nothing better than to see more credit unions convert to taxpaying banks. This is hardly going to happen if CUs perceive the OCC as an inhospitable regulator of their mutual form.