Receiving Wide Coverage ...
Volcker relief
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency Tuesday approved
“Among the changes, firms with less than $1 billion in trading assets and liabilities … will be given the benefit of the doubt by regulators that they comply with the Volcker rule’s trading restrictions," the paper says. "Previously, those companies faced the burden of showing regulators that they were in compliance with the rules. The biggest banks will get limited relief by no longer having to prove to regulators that trades held for less than 60 days weren’t made for the firms’ own short-term profit or otherwise prohibited.”
“Large banks will still be banned from conducting proprietary trading, but the changes are
The debate over the Volcker rule now turns “to whether the agencies had done the right thing, and that is
More, more, more
Goldman Sachs seeks to take a majority stake in its Chinese investment-banking joint venture. The bank has filed with Chinese regulators to increase its stake in Goldman Sachs Gao Hua Securities Co. to 51% from 33%, “with the goal of taking over the local operation completely.” Until two years ago, “Western companies could operate in China only as a minority partner in a securities joint venture with a local company.” The country has been slower than expected in approving ownership increases.
Wall Street Journal
How quickly they forget
Subprime mortgage loans are making a comeback, although under a different name. “More than a decade after home loans triggered the worst financial crisis in a generation, the strict lending requirements put in place during its aftermath are starting to erode. Home buyers with low credit scores or high debt levels as well as those lacking traditional employment are finding it easier to get credit.”
But the loans “have been rebranded.” Gone are “liar loans,” so-called because “so many borrowers faked their income and assets. Now they are called non-qualified, or non-QM, because they
Leaving crypto
Robert Cohen, the head of the Securities and Exchange Commission’s Cyber Unit, is joining Davis Polk & Wardwell, “a white-shoe law firm whose clients include some of Wall Street’s biggest banks and stock exchanges.” Cohen “is one of a select few former government officials with expertise in cryptocurrencies to move into the private sector.” His departure “leaves the cyber unit without a leader and comes at a time when the agency was
Another Fed critic
The Federal Reserve’s plans to launch a real-time payment service in the next five years “demonstrates that the independent central bank, already one of the most unaccountable agencies in the federal government, is
Financial Times
Out of service
Several of the U.K.’s largest banks and building societies, including Royal Bank of Scotland, were “hit by an IT outage at U.S. payments company TSYS that left their customers unable to pay credit card bills or access account information. The widespread issues highlight
Cracking down
Another former precious metals trader at JPMorgan Chase pleaded guilty to federal criminal charges of spoofing, or placing and then canceling orders in order to fool other traders. The trader, Christian Trunz, “admitted placing thousands of orders for gold, silver and other metals futures contracts that he did not intend to execute. The case is the latest in a series of prosecutions brought by U.S. authorities as they have
Washington Post
Paying to bank
Banks in Denmark and Switzerland recently announced they
Quotable
“The changes finalized today help address the longstanding, bipartisan concern from Congress and the regulators that the Volcker rule, as originally implemented, was
