Nominated: President Trump tapped Judge Neil Gorsuch of the Denver-based 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the open Supreme Court seat. Gorsuch is a traditionalist and an admirer of the late Antonin Scalia, whose seat he would fill if confirmed. Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, New York Times, Washington Post
Neil Gorsuch, federal appeals court judge, speaks after being nominated as an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court by U.S. President Donald Trump during a ceremony in the East Room of the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Tuesday, Jan. 31, 2017. Replacing the late Justice Antonin Scalia, Trump is setting up a showdown with congressional Democrats over a selection that would bolster the court's conservative wing for a generation or more. Photographer: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg
Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg
Boycott: Senate Democrats refused to attend committee votes for Treasury secretary-designate Steven Mnuchin and Health and Human Services nominee Tom Price, delaying the confirmation process for both men. The senators said they wanted more information. Some of them claimed that written testimony Mnuchin supplied after his confirmation hearing last month wasn't truthful. Committee rules require at least one member from each party to be present to conduct business. According to the Wall Street Journal, this is the longest timeline for confirming a Treasury secretary for a new administration since at least World War II. Wall Street Journal, New York Times, American Banker
Wall Street Journal
Growing tensions: Banks are cracking down on the security practices of their vendors, whether they're technology companies that store critical financial data or merely food-services companies that post lunch menus on a bank's internal website. "This more stringent review of business relationships is leading to heightened tension between banks, which are trying to ensure the safety of their operations, and their outside contractors, which are being pummeled with demands for information before they even win a potential client's business," the Journal reports. The banks' increased focus on their vendors started after hackers broke into Target's credit card network three years ago by stealing the login credentials of a heating-and-air-conditioning contractor.
Clouds: After agreeing to pay $630 million to settle its latest scandal – allegations that it helped wealthy Russians launder money – Deutsche Bank still faces a "grim mood inside the bank" and a "cloudy profit outlook," the Journal reports Wednesday morning.
Home, sweet home: Invitation Homes, the Blackstone Group unit that owns and rents out single-family homes, raised $1.54 billion in its initial public offering Tuesday, making it the largest American IPO since First Data Corp. raised $2.8 billion in October 2015, according to Dealogic. The real estate investment trust sold 77 million shares at $20 apiece.
Ups and downs: Ally Financial's auto lending business continued to decline as it diversified its business. The former financing arm of General Motors said auto loan originations fell 12% to $8.2 billion in the fourth quarter from the same quarter a year earlier. But total revenue rose 2.2% to $1.37 billion, while retail deposits jumped 20% to $66.58 billion. Ally had net income of $248 million, or 52 cents a share, up from a loss a year earlier.
Financial Times
Slanted?: Europe's financial technology companies believe that new laws being written by the European Banking Authority give too much power to traditional banks. "If it goes ahead as currently written it will not create open banking as the law originally envisaged," said the head of a Swedish online payments company.
At your service: HSBC named Joe Gordon, an executive who has worked in finance for just two years, to run First Direct, its branchless telephone and online banking unit in the U.K. Prior to his appointment, Gordon was head of a customer service unit at HSBC. "First Direct is a primarily customer-service business and Joe has a great deal of experience in running successful customer-focused environments," the bank said.
New York Times
Test case: Steven Davidoff Solomon, a law professor at the University of California-Berkeley, writes in the Times' Deal Professor column that Ant Financial's proposed $880 million acquisition of MoneyGram will be "the first test of the Trump administration's stance on Chinese investment" in the U.S. "The matter may also provide a test case for the reach of banks and payments services," he says.
Quotable ...
"I think this is a completely unprecedented level of obstruction." — Sen. Patrick J. Toomey, R-Pa., about Democrat attempts to delay the confirmation of some of President Trump's cabinet appointees
Sens. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., and Angela Alsobrooks, D-Md., have released compromise language on stablecoin yield for a long-awaited crypto market structure bill, clearing the way for a markup in the near future.
The FDIC moved quickly on Friday to sell $288 million in assets Community Bank and Trust – West Georgia to Anchor Bank, but the sale announcement leaves the fate of $27 million in uninsured deposits to be determined.
Market watchers think Jerome Powell will maintain a low-key presence on the Fed board as he awaits the release of an inspector general report examining cost overruns at the central bank's headquarters.
Banner Bank is poised to merge with Bank of the Pacific in an all-stock deal valued at $177 million. The two Washington-based commercial banks both have branches in Washington and Oregon.
BayFirst Financial in St. Petersburg named veteran Tampa-area banker Al Rogers as its CEO and announced an $80 million capital raise. The bank sold its SBA-lending business last year, but it's still struggling to work through problems in its legacy loan portfolio.
San Diego County Credit Union won a court ruling that should help in its effort to get out of its deal to merge with a local competitor. A lawyer for SDCCU said he believes the judge's decision "signals the end of any merger between the two institutions."
