Risk management

Citigroup is punishing investment firms that kept payments the bank accidentally sent to Revlon lenders by blocking them from certain new debt offerings led by the bank, according to people with knowledge of the matter.

Banks have begun inserting new language into loan deals that would require investors to return accidental payments like the one Citigroup made to Revlon's lenders last year.

The bank’s new holding company, Amalgamated Financial Group, is the first publicly traded financial services company to become a public benefit corporation. It says the legal designation will help officers and directors balance the interests of shareholders and the public.

Going green takes time, so lenders need to start revamping entire business relationships now, according to one sustainability-focused nonprofit. That process could include setting environmental goals for fossil-fuels companies and other customers that are conditions for continuing to finance them.

Shared national credit balances rose 5% last year, and the percentage of at-risk loans nearly doubled. Regulators point out that banks have stashed away extra capital, but a lot will depend on the speed of the economic recovery and the performance of nonbank loans.

The operating environment is dramatically different than it was pre-pandemic and presents all-new challenges for financial institutions. Tried-and-true strategies that led to high performance for many years are no longer going to be successful. Join Bonnie McGeer, Executive Editor of American Banker, and Claude Hanley, Partner at Capital Performance Group, as they highlight important trends and comb through data from top-performing banks across the country for insights that will help regional and community financial institutions thrive in 2021. Executives will learn what metrics will be most critical to focus on to maintain high performance going forward.

Citigroup unexpectedly lost a legal battle to recover half a billion dollars it sent Revlon lenders, after the embarrassing blunder forced it to answer to regulators and tighten its internal controls.

Still under fire for financing oil-and-gas exploration, banks are now being criticized for bankrolling producers of the single-use bottles and wrappers that are piling up in landfills and waterways. How will they respond to the mounting pressure from environmentalists?

The Biden administration’s yet-to-be-named comptroller of the currency is widely expected to invalidate the GOP-backed measure that bars banks from shunning gun makers, fossil-fuel producers and the like. But another option is to recast it to promote investment in underserved communities.