BankThink

Total U.S. demand deposits are around $1 trillion. China and Japan each hold around $1 trillion in U.S. Treasuries.

Receiving Wide Coverage ...The Fault Lies Not in Our Stars: The fingers seem to be pointing at CEO Robert P. Kelly in his separation from Bank of New York Mellon. Kelly passed the blame for certain problems to others in senior management “people familiar with the matter” told the Journal. Also he reportedly was “difficult” to work with and the Board feared it would lose top employees the same sources told the paper. The Times cited an unnamed source who said Kelly’s departure was not rooted in litigation, nor was it related to one specific issue. Another unnamed source told the paper Kelly was not as engaged in day-to-day issues as the board would have liked.

About 200 digital certificates, which are used to verify the legitimacy of websites, may have been compromised or fraudulently issued in a recent breach, according to new estimates.

Strong opinions abound on the future of bank branches. Will branches be relevant 10 years from now? Will financial technology solutions be able to significantly disrupt the business of banking such that branches, at least as we know them today, become obsolete?

Little has been done to buoy confidence that an economic recovery is at hand. A settlement of the investigations surrounding last year’s robo-signing scandal that, among other things, achieves widespread principal reduction commitments from major servicers, could change that — but only if done carefully.

The banking industry is reeling from a slowdown in the economy that could last years and layoffs in this industry will be severe. Bank of America leads the list with announcing that it will lay off 10,000 employees and UBS is geared to lay off 3,500, however, this round of layoffs will touch not only the large banks, but also community and regional banks.

One of my mantras over the past few years has been that as our industry becomes more technology-driven and our products and services more commoditized, our people become more important, not less.

Receiving Wide Coverage ...Krueger on Board: As Scan readers were anticipating: Obama did in fact nominate labor economist Alan Krueger as chairman the Council of Economic Advisers, to replace Austan Goolsbee, touting his experience, according to the Post. More specifically, the Times reported, Krueger's studies of labor markets will be a boon for Obama, who plans to announce a jobs initiative next week. The Journal sees his role as Obama's "advocate for more aggressive government intervention to revive job growth." Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post

It all seemed so simple. The cause of the financial crisis was that private label securitizers of subprime mortgage loans weren't required to "have enough skin in the game," so Dodd-Frank would require them to retain 5% of the risk.

The "hacktivist" group Anonymous has been a bane for many financial companies, but a boon for one company's financials. Its choice of a Guy Fawkes mask as its logo has been profitable for Time Warner, which owns the rights to the image.