Wrong time: Goldman Sachs executive James Donovan told the Trump Administration he has withdrawn his name as nominee for deputy Treasury secretary, citing unexpected family matters that required more of his attention. "I am deeply honored by President Trump's decision to nominate me," Donovan said. "I hope to be able to serve this administration in the future and fully support President Trump and Secretary Steven Mnuchin's ongoing work to reform the tax system and grow the U.S. economy." New York Times, Washington Post, American Banker
Wall Street Journal
Weak growth: "Despite a slight rebound in loan growth, political and economic uncertainty still seem to be holding back lending by U.S. banks," the Journal's Heard on the Street column reports. Total loans and leases rose nearly 1% over the first six weeks of the second quarter, according to Federal Reserve data, which is a modest improvement from the first quarter, when loan volume was basically flat. However, "that still looks anemic" compared to 2016.
Back in business: One area where banks might be able to grow loan volume is by offering short-term, high-interest rate loans to consumers. "After being pushed out of the sector by Obama-era rules," banks and credit unions are hoping to take advantage of a lighter regulatory touch by the Trump Administration to get back into the business. "Letting banks and credit unions offer small loans, proponents say, would help the millions of U.S. households that pay billions of dollars in fees each year to payday and auto-title lenders that often charge annual interest rates exceeding 300%," the Journal said.
Comfort factors: Investors are renewing their interest in buying loans from marketplace lenders after cooling to them last year as the companies have made changes to become "a little more Wall Street and a little less Silicon Valley," according to the Journal. Since the start of April, more than $2 billion in securities backed by online lenders have either been sold or are being prepared for sale, which is more than was issued in all of last year's second quarter. That comes on top of the $3 billion in bonds that were sold in the first quarter, which was double the amount sold in the year-earlier period.
Dirty money: Maybe money really should be laundered once in a while — literally — in order to remove the many forms of bacteria that cling to bills. Emily Martin, an assistant professor of epidemiology at the University of Michigan School of Public Health, tells the Journal "which bugs may be money-hungry and when it's worth worrying about critters in the ATM."
Reassurance: Canada's biggest banks this week are expected to report strong fiscal second-quarter earnings that they hope will "reassure investors that Canada's banking system remains in good health," the FT reports. Canadian "earnings season comes at a time of investor nervousness," it notes, following Moody's recent downgrade of the country's five largest banks due to concerns about soaring home prices and household debt burdens.
Consumers are less likely to share PINs with fraudsters, according to RBC executives.
Cole Burston/Bloomberg
Poor oversight: American companies are doing a poor job of managing their employees' retirement plans and are paying the price in court. According to an investigation by the FT, corporations have agreed to pay close to $400 million to settle claims that savers "have been harmed by higher-than-necessary fees or a poor line-up of investment funds." The FT said more than 90 lawsuits have been filed since 2006 alleging the mismanagement of retirement plans, "and the number of cases has accelerated sharply in the past two years."
After several quarters of slumping investment banking and trading fees, the Charlotte, North Carolina-based company reported a big uptick from that division, which helped compensate for a large decline in net interest income.
The Federal Reserve's Office of the Inspector General says the Fed has yet to fulfill 65 recommendations, and also identified 18 outstanding issues at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
The bank will use biometric authentication to streamline checkout in stores starting in 2025. It has already completed internal and external pilots of the technology.
Banks reported nearly $27 billion had been tied up in scams or theft against elderly people in a recent 12-month period, according to a report from the U.S. Treasury.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. says it's ready to wind down the global systemically important banks. But until that happens, many in the banking industry are skeptical that regulators have actually developed a workable strategy to end "too big to fail."
