Free Republic

<p>Everyone hates paying bank fees. But imagine paying fees on a ghost account you didn't even sign up for.</p> <p>That's exactly what happened to Wells Fargo customers nationwide.</p> <p>On Thursday, federal regulators said Wells Fargo employees secretly created millions of unauthorized bank and credit card accounts -- without their customers knowing it -- since 2011.</p>

Negative interest rates are spreading like a virus. Central banks in the Eurozone, Switzerland, Sweden, and Japan all have below-zero policy rates. “NIRP,” as economists call a negative interest rate policy, is a desperation move—but the only move those central banks have. The Federal Reserve hasn’t followed—yet. When the next recession strikes, I believe Janet Yellen will choose to break the zero lower bound. The rationale was laid out in Jackson Hole. Look behind the headlines and you’ll see the Fed already preparing for NIRP. In theory, negative rates should encourage consumers and businesses to spend more freely and stimulate...

At first (literally the day the Fed announced QE1) it was just "tinfoil fringe blogs" who predicted the failure of the central bank's attempt to boost the economy by printing money, instead warning that all the Fed would do is unleash an unprecedented income and wealth divide that may culminate in civil war and hyperinflation. Then, gradually, analysts, pundits and even the mainstream press admitted the truth, i.e., that tin-foilers were right all along, until recently even the Fed's own mouthpiece, Jon Hilsenrath, one day before the Jackson Hole meeting wrote that "Years of Fed Missteps Fueled Disillusion With the...

VISA and blockchain-technology partner BTL will invite a select group of European banks to participate in a blockchain project that will see inter-bank payments made via transfers over the ledger. Hot on the heels of the likes of R3, Visa will experiment its own blockchain-based payments platform with a select group of banks who will send money over a blockchain. The proof-of-concept project will use Interbit, a cross-border blockchain remittance and settlement platform developed by industry startup BTL. Launched earlier this year, the Interbit platform is seen by Visa as the solution to “reduce cost, settlement time, credit risk, and...

The first half of 2016 has been a roller-coaster for financial markets. A combination of uncertainties surrounding the U.K.'s vote to leave the European Union and weaker-than-expected corporate earnings results across the region means a tough second half looms. European banks, in particular, have had a very tough six months as the shock and volatility around Brexit sent banking stocks south. Major European banks like Deutsche Bank and Credit Suisse saw their shares in free-fall after the referendum's results were announced. In the U.K., RBS was the worst-hit, with its shares plunging by more than 30 percent since June 24....

HAMBURG—German savers are leaving the security of savings banks for what many now consider an even safer place to park their cash: home safes.

The past several years have seen a surprising spike in professional suicides, mostly confined to the banking sector in general and Deutsche Bank in particular. Overnight this tragic group expanded into multinational corporation sector, after one the top executives at South Korea's multinational conglomerate Lotte Group was found dead on Friday, in what is a suspected suicide, hours before he was to be questioned by prosecutors conducting a criminal probe into the country's fifth-largest conglomerate. Lee, who was 69, had been scheduled to appear before prosecutors on Friday morning, a Lotte official said. Lotte Group confirmed the death of Vice...

The marketing team of Frankfurt never expected its English-language dummy website to attract new businesses would actually go live after Britain’s European Union referendum. “We hadn’t really assumed that we would need the site at all,” spokeswoman Michaela Kahle told AFP, as the team thought Britons would surely vote “Remain”. But as it turned out, the Welcome to FrankfurtRheinMain site was not only put to good use, but has become a hit, with 27,000 views since Britain stunned the world by deciding to leave the bloc. Quickly recovering from the shock, Kahle and her colleagues kicked into action, fielding inquiries...

In the first six months of 2016, foreign central banks sold a net $192 billion of U.S. Treasury bills, notes, and bonds. This is more than double the pace from the same time last year. China, Japan, and Brazil were the leaders in selling U.S. debt. With the U.S. debt running at approximately $19.4 trillion, this could be problematic. A large selloff of U.S. bonds would decrease their price, or in other worlds, increase domestic interest rates in general (bond prices and interest rates always move in the opposite direction).

A major knives manufacturer from central California says his company was denied access to an internet payment processing service because they sell weapons online, raising questions about whether an anti-fraud program called Operation Choke Point is continuing to block legal businesses in the firearms and weapons industries from accessing basic banking services. “It was pretty simple and straightforward,” Aaron Hogue, co-owner of Hogue Inc., said of the situation he faced with Wells Fargo bank. “They called my controller, and said, ‘Sorry, but we’re not going to be able to process any credit card transactions for the sale of weapons online.’”...

http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/698305/Deutsche-Bank-financial-crisis-EU-Angela-Merkel 'We should nationalise German banks' Warning Deutsche Bank teetering on edge of CRISIS A TOP economist has warned that Germany's biggest bank is teetering on the edge of crisis and they only way to protect it against future shocks is to nationalise it. By SIMON OSBORNE 20:03, Tue, Aug 9, 2016 | UPDATED: 21:00, Tue, Aug 9, 2016 Germany central bank, the Deutsche Bank, would be hit hard in a new financial crisis Martin Hellwig said stress tests carried out by the European Central Bank revealed the Deutsche Bank would be left in a precarious position in the event of...

Banks from Italy, Ireland, Spain and Austria fared worst in the latest European Union stress test, which the region’s banking watchdog said on Friday showed there was still work to do in order to boost credit to the bloc’s economy. Eight years since the collapse of Lehman Brothers sparked a global banking meltdown, many of Europe’s banks are still saddled with billions of euros in poorly performing loans, crimping their ability to lend and putting off investors. “While a number of individual banks have clearly fared badly, the overall finding of the European Banking Authority — that Europe’s banks are...

Craig Haskell says his grandmother saved everything. So, even though she died in 1998, he just recently found something of hers in a safe deposit box: a certificate of deposit from 1997. "I just took it out and I looked at it and said, 'Oh my god. That’s $32,000,'" he explained. The paper reads $32,308.97, to be exact, with Haskell's name on it. But when he tried to cash the CD, Wells Fargo denied him. "She’s gone now; I have the death certificate to prove it," Haskell said. "My name’s on the check. And Wells Fargo can’t tell me what...

Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) is on Hillary Clinton’s short list of potential vice presidential nominees. He’s also actively pushing bank deregulation this week as he campaigns for the job. Kaine signed two letters on Monday urging federal regulators to go easy on banks ― one to help big banks dodge risk management rules, and another to help small banks avoid consumer protection standards. Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton's ... pick is widely viewed in Washington as a sign of her governing intentions.

(Sen. Tim Kaine is reportedly Bill Clinton's favorite for the VP slot. (Photo: US Department of Education/flickr/cc) Sounding another alarm for progressives wary of the Democratic establishment's support for Wall Street, the man said to be leading the pack of potential Hillary Clinton running mates—Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine—has just this week sent a clear message to big banks: He's in their corner. Kaine, who is reportedly Bill Clinton's favorite for the vice presidential slot, signed onto two letters on Monday pushing for financial deregulation—letters that show the Clinton camp "how Kaine could be an asset with banking interests on...

Financial Crisis: The Republican platform put forward in Cleveland is a lively and conservative document, full of great ideas to make America great again. But one thing stands out as a truly bad idea: reviving the partly-repealed Glass-Steagall Act. "We support reinstating the Glass-Steagall Act, which prohibits commercial banks from engaging in high risk activities," says the platform document. What? It was one of the Democrats' big talking points during the 2007-2008 financial crisis and after that a major cause of the panic was due to Bill Clinton in 1999 foolishly going along with the Republicans to get rid of...

A (mostly) daily posting for those interested in history and the day to day news, politics and culture of a bygone world. The full edition of the New York Tribune from Tuesday July 21, 1896 (digitized). Some other headlines from today's paper... VENEZUELA MAKES RELY: An Elaborate Brief Filed with the Boundary Commission| THREATS OF LYNCHING: A Brooklyn Prisoner Kept in Police Station for Protection| LOUD THREATS OF BOLTING - WAR CLOUDS OVER ST. LOUIS: Populists Divided Over Bryan Into Hostile Camps

The Republican Party has taken a page straight out of the campaign books of Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. What? No, we’re not kidding. In the party’s 2016 platform, the GOP advocates for reinstating the Glass-Steagall Act, a Depression-era law that regulated the U.S. banking industry until it was repealed in 1999. Bringing the law back would lead to the breakup of major U.S. banks like JPMorgan Chase in order to separate investment banking from commercial banking. …

Attacking big banks is as American as apple pie. But it’s a new entry on this year’s Republican menu. In a convention surprise, the Republicans inserted a plank in the party platform calling for the restoration of a Depression-era law, the Glass-Steagall Act, that separated commercial and investment banking. The law was repealed in 1999 during the Clinton administration, with bipartisan support, at the behest of the big banks, which said they needed to combine their investment and commercial functions in order to compete on the global stage. It didn’t turn out so well, of course... ...What the Republican Party...

Comey was an HSBC board member. HSBC funneled $81 million to Clinton Foundation http://www.hsbc.com/news-and-insight/2013/former-us-deputy-attorney-general-joins-hsbc-board https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/feb/10/hillary-clinton-foundation-donors-hsbc-swiss-bank Close the donation page and read the hence links. https://www.clintonfoundation.org/search/node/HSBC Should Comey have recused himself?