PayThink

It seems unlikely that the head of a bank under such heavy government pressure would have much to say to public audiences, but Vikram Pandit hasn’t exactly been keeping his lips zipped. The Citigroup, inc. chief executive has been hop-scotching the globe this year, delivering a lecture at the London School of Economics, participating in the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum in Russia, and traveling on business to Singapore. Next month, Pandit will face an audience right in his company's own backyard.

Not everyone is thrilled with Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke’s re-nomination to a second term at the Fed, and Columbia Journalism Review blogger Ryan Chittum has begun to chronicle the critics. He describes Breakingviews’ arguments against keeping Bernanke, and summarizes a disapproving op-ed by Stephen Roach, a Morgan Stanley executive, in today’s Financial Times. Thos two naysayers aren’t alone. Amar Bhide, a visiting scholar at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, sparred yesterday on CNBC with Roger Altman, a former Deputy Treasury Secretary.

There’s a new list out of the world’s safest banks and there aren’t very many Americans institutions on it. Global Finance Magazine today released its annual assessment, based on credit ratings, of the top 50 safest banks out of the world’s largest 500. The first U.S. bank on the list comes in at No. 32: It is Bank of New York Mellon.

The Federal Reserve lost a lawsuit yesterday, and the decision could hold implications for the future of emergency borrowing and programs like the Talf. A U.S. District judge in Manhattan ordered the Fed to turn over information that journalists had requested about the identities of banks borrowing from the Fed and the collateral they’d posted to do so. When Bloomberg LP filed the suit last November at the height of the credit crunch, a win seemed nearly impossible. But now it’s a reality. Will the threat of exposure put bankers off the Talf? Will it make them less likely to borrow form the discount window when they’re in trouble? The answer seems to depend on what happens next.

The trillions in adverse financial exposure and lost economic opportunity were supposed to teach us, especially those of us connected with the banking system, something about risk. But a look at the latest trend in home appraisal practices shows that although the relationship between mortgage lenders and appraisers may look different on the surface, its nature remains troubled.

Forbes published its list of the 100 most powerful women in the world today and Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Chairman Sheila Bair has come in second yet again. She was beat out for the top spot by German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and she leads PepsiCo’ Chief Executive Indira Nooyi, who took third place.

The moral protest over the idea of bank bailouts has made its way into the court system. A lawsuit filed yesterday in Illinois charged Wells Fargo with violating fair lending laws by lowering a home equity borrower’s line of credit based on an unsubstantiated appraisal of his house. The complaint is a class-action suit representing all of the home equity borrowers who were similarly hit with reduced credit lines, but it also appeals to a vaguer sense of inequity with a passage highlighting Wells Fargo’s $25 billion share of handouts from the Troubled Asset Relief Program.

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. – What will the nation’s credit union community look like 100 years from now? Will there even be one? Or will it be even more robust?

Last night The Bank Lawyer--blogger Kevin Funnell--offered a theory about why the Independent Community Bankers of America is supporting the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.’s plan to raise capital requirements for private equity investors buying failed banks. He said it seemed that the ICBA expected the rule-change to steer more private equity firms toward stakes in troubled-but-still-standing institutions. Would it work? Funnell didn’t think so. But private equity bidders may find deals with still-operational banks to be sweeter and easier to get.

We almost feel sorry for the guy. As a frequent witness on the Hill recently, Treasury Secretary Geithner has already spent hours and hours answering softball questions with no good follow-ups. Now he faces hundreds more—from the readers of the Wall Street Journal. Turns out the WSJ readers who sent in questions aren’t much more curious than Congress is. They certainly aren’t any more focused.