Not-So-Secret Chat: A new deal between New York's financial regulator and four big banks aims to preserve government access to the financial institutions' electronic communications. The deal comes ahead of the launch of Wall Street's long-awaited chat and messaging service Symphony, scheduled to roll out Tuesday. Deutsche Bank, Credit Suisse, Goldman Sachs and Bank of New York Mellon will all keep copies of their communications via Symphony for seven years and stash duplicates of decryption keys for their messages with independent custodians. That takes care of all the banks regulated by the New York Department of Financial Services, but there are still 10 additional banks that plan to use Symphony but are not under NYDFS supervision. Will they concede to similar terms? Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Financial Times.
Wall Street Journal
Credit Suisse plans to pay $85 million to government authorities to settle charges related to its dark-pool trading activities, according to an anonymouse. The deal is still indefinite but could be announced as early as the end of the month.
"Heard on the Street" casts a skeptical eye on the financial statements of nonbank ATM operator Cardtronics, arguing that its adjusted earnings "downplay the costs of Cardtronics' growth" from acquisitions.
Financial Times
Investors are betting that Bank of America stocks will fall in anticipation of "an embarrassing defeat" for the bank at its special meeting on Sept. 22. Shareholders are scheduled to vote on whether chief executive Brian Moynihan should be allowed to keep his board-appointed second role as chairman.
A number of former traders are scheduled to protest their dismissals from Citigroup and Lloyds Banking Group in the coming weeks, arguing they were used as scapegoats as banks sought to shield themselves from fallout in the foreign-exchange rate-rigging scandal.
The Federal Reserve will be testing out a new method of ensuring that short-term interest rates follow their charted course when it decides to raise rates. "The Fed cannot use its traditional tool of varying the supply of reserves to steer rates: there is simply too much money sloshing around the system" thanks to the central bank's quantitative easing program, the paper explains. Instead the central bank will vary the interest rate it pays on excess reserves and use a repo tool to set the Fed funds rate.
Payments company Stripe is unrolling a tool that lets users buy goods via social media sites like Twitter. "Its new Relay software allows merchants to upload details of their products directly into Stripe, then tweet or publish a link to buy that item on a range of social media platforms," the paper reports.
New York Times
Are banks scared by the Justice Department's announcement that it plans to crack down on executives' wrongdoing? Peter Henning has his doubts. He argues that while the DOJ has instructed banks to turn over information about individual misconduct if they want to receive cooperation credit during regulatory investigations, banks have little to fear if they disobey. After all, a stiffer fine amounts to just a "few more billion dollars of shareholder capital," and the government has gone out of its way to soften the blow of criminal guilty pleas .
Washington Post
Former Treasury secretary Larry Summers offers up another reason why the Fed should hold off raising rates: market expectations. Right now, most people are betting against a rate hike in September, which means that an increase would come as a shock. "Even if it were otherwise a good idea to tighten, no adequate predicate has been laid for a rate increase this week," he writes.
Elsewhere ...
NPR takes a look at small-business owners who find that their banks are unwilling to reimburse them for cyber fraud.
Business Insider has a preview of the 16 safest banks in the world, according to rankings by the magazine Global Finance. No American banks crack the list.
