BankThink

Breaking News This Morning ...Bank of America agreed to sell its $8.6 billion Canadian credit card portfolio to Toronto-Dominion Bank. Terms were not disclosed. This was the third sale of international credit-card portfolios by the bank this year. It still plans to sell its U.K. and Ireland credit card operations.

What if you were put in charge of regulating all credit unions? What would you do? In this, the first of a two-part series that probes these questions, I will tell you what I would do.

It's been so easy to be caught up in your own credit union's balance sheet that it's become even easier to forget the deep worries others have over theirs: your members. Now is the time to not just remind yourself but to put into practice one of the key reasons for being: to help those "Everyday Joes" not spend every day worrying.

The Social Security numbers of 75,000 people were exposed in a data breach at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

Many banks frustrated by elusive loan and revenue growth are exploring the mergers and acquisitions market — however tentatively — in the hope of improving earnings through cost savings. The pivotal question is how to avoid overpaying for the savings.

Receiving Wide Coverage ...Hold on Tight: The Dow bounced back up again yesterday by 423 points, 4 percent. As the Post described: "investors cheered a better-than-expected report on jobless claims in another round of volatile trading that continued a week-long pattern of wild swings between gains and losses." The Journal referred to the week as "one of the most volatile streaks in history for stocks." The Times said the move from "panicked selling to fevered buying and back" has left "investors bewildered about what might come next." But banks shouldn't expect the huge number of trades to help their bottom lines. The Journal notes, "a stock-trading surge likely won't generate enough commission revenue for banks and securities firms to overcome the losses they are expected to take this quarter from holding stock inventories whose value has fallen with the recent market rout." Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post

Regulators should be aware of the role banks play in steering these products into pension, endowment and foundation portfolios.

The reality is sinking in.

There is a particular segment of the underbanked population that every financial institution should focus on. Young adults, defined as anyone between the ages of 18 and 25, represent a valuable segment of potential customers for a couple of reasons.

Many companies are "needlessly exposing their customers to hacking, identity theft and government surveillance," a cybersecurity researcher wrote, and although a few are starting to make improvements, they are "invisible to the average user."