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ZURICH (Reuters) - At least 10 Swiss banks have withdrawn from a U.S. program aimed at settling a tax dispute between them and the United States, Swiss newspaper NZZ am Sonntag said on Sunday, quoting unnamed sources. Around 100 Swiss banks came forward at the end of last year to work with U.S. authorities in a program brokered by the Swiss government to help the banks make amends for aiding tax evasion. "At least 10 banks that had decided at the end of 2013 to pay a fine have withdrawn their decision," NZZ am Sonntag said, quoting unnamed lawyers and...

Once again, our Chicago-style Attorney General has proven that corruption is the basic foundation upon which the modern Democrat Party is built. Eric Holder, the nationÂ’s top extortionist officer, has been running around the financial sector suing banks for anything (and everything) he can get away with. Ally Bank paid millions for alleged racist lending practices (an allegation the DOJ made without ever looking at loan portfolios), JP Morgan has shelled out billions for various anti-Obama comments regulatory infractions, and Bank of America just paid a $16.6 billion fine for their government-mandated role in the financial crises of 2008.Aside from...

... The reasoning was very simple: in a country (and world) drowning with debt, there are only two options to extinguish said debt: inflate it away or default. Anything else is kicking the can while making the problem even worse. ... Moments ago a stunning article appearing in the "Foreign Affairs" publication of the influential and policy-setting Council of Foreign Relations, titled "Print Less but Transfer More: Why Central Banks Should Give Money Directly to the People." ... In it we read the now conventional admission of failure by Keynesians, who however, unwilling to actually admit they have been wrong,...

SunTrust Banks Inc. is shuttering its fraud-response call center group in Orlando and shedding more than 100 jobs, the bank confirmed Wednesday. Atlanta-based SunTrust, the largest bank in Central Florida, handed out pink slips to 105 employees on Tuesday. The effective layoff date is Oct. 31, according to documents filed with the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity. "Difficult decisions must be made to increase operational efficiencies and decrease expenses to better position the company for the future," SunTrust told employees in the layoff notice. The bank posted a $400 million profit on revenue of $2.2 billion in the second quarter,...

Word has leaked that JPMorgan Chase and possibly four other banks have been hacked. Details are scarce at this point, but the FBI and other government agencies are involved in the investigation. The hack allegedly took place earlier in August and hackers have siphoned off huge amounts of sensitive data from Chase, including checking and savings account information. Even more concerning, sources say that the attack goes "far beyond the capabilities of ordinary hackers." Given the timing, some security experts are speculating it was the work of high-level Russian hackers. According to an inside source, there has been no increase...

The $16.65 billion settlement by Bank of America over financial-crisis-era mortgage securities "highlights a pattern of the government extorting the banks," Dick Kovacevich said on CNBC this week. Kovacevich is the former Wells Fargo chairman and CEO. I've known him for years. He ran a great bank. He kept Wells Fargo clean during the credit meltdown. And, unusual for a big-bank CEO, he strongly supports free-market principles. Kovacevich went on to say, "It's definitely politics. It has nothing to do with justice or restitution to the innocent victims. In fact, more of the money is going to the coffers of...

RANT! It's a frustrating situation to have in your hands a check from the US Treasury for over $141,000 and you can't do a darned thing with it except frame it and hang it on the wall as a souvenir. My MIL passed away in 2011, and my wife (as the only surviving relative) was named in the will as the executor of the estate and successor to the trust. The will was filed with the courts in L.A. and the long process began. We paid the IRS $240K the first year in estimated estate taxes along with a request...

Employees on Wall Street, and those working at other financial institutions, are concerned about keeping their jobs. But a recent survey showed that financial services companies may underrate the value employees put on job security. This comes as the threat of layoffs is seen at many top banks. For instance, JPMorgan is laying off hundreds of tech-support workers, and the Bank of America is letting staff go, too, as well as Citigroup and Bank of New York Mellon. Laura Sejen, a managing director at Towers Watson, which released the recent survey, told eFinancialCareers, “US employees working in financial services indicate...

Following a merger between Mountain West Bank and First Interstate Bank, several Mountain West locations will be closing across the state ... While the merger of the two well known Montana banks is still pending, Interstate Bank has announced a list of banks that will be closing or relocating

The Federal Reserve created a monster $4.3 trillion balance sheet, up by $3 trillion from 2008, through quantitative easing. QE ends this fall. Now the Fed is trying to figure out what to do with this monster. Their thinking seems to be that they can maintain control over it by paying banks more money to not make loans. So let's get this right. Households and businesses are attempting to borrow money from banks. But the Federal Reserve may eventually pay banks $100 billion per year not to lend to Main Street. Politicians will have a field day with that. The...

Following this morning's farce of huge investor demand and then Bank of Portugal's Costa 'hoping' for demand from investors willing to pile more money on losing money into Espirito Santo, it appears things have escalated rapidly... *ESPIRITO SANTO INTERNATIONAL SAYS IT CAN'T MEET OBLIGATIONS *ES INTERNATIONAL APPLIES FOR `CONTROLLED MANAGEMENT' REGIME *ES INTERNATIONAL APPLIES FOR REGIME UNDER LUXEMBOURG LAW The "controlled management" application is the equivalent of declaring a breakup or controlled bankruptcy process (as we explained here). ESI is the ultimate HoldCo in the Banco Espirito Santo family.

From small businesses on Main Street to the halls of Congress and the state legislatures, concern is mounting over Operation Choke Point, a coordinated effort among the Department of Justice (DOJ) and bank regulators to cut off banking services for a variety of legal, state-regulated businesses. This week alone, there are three congressional hearings on Operation Choke Point, hearings which will hopefully bring an end this misguided operation. Operation Choke Point is one of the most dangerous programs I have experienced in my 45 years of service as a bank regulator, bank attorney and consultant, and bank board member. Operating...

The recent exposé of the employee survey that asked probing questions about employee support for the “LGBT community” has focused attention on something that the typical depositor might not be aware of, and that is the massive time and attention JP Morgan Chase lavishes on the LGBT issue. Four years ago JP Morgan Chase told a local businessman that he had to remove a Christmas tree he donated to the lobby of a branch bank in Southlake, Texas. The reason given was that some found the Christmas decoration offensive. The order to remove was not made locally. It came from...

As government regulators crack down on the financing of terrorists and drug traffickers, many big banks are abandoning the business of transferring money from the United States to other countries, moves that are expected to reverse years of declines in the cost of immigrants sending money home to their families. While Mexico may be most affected — nearly half of the $51.1 billion in remittances sent from the United States in 2012 ended up in that country — the banks’ broad retreat over the last year is affecting other countries in Latin America and parts of Africa as well. The...

Jim EdwardsJune 30, 2014  The Bank for International Settlements — the Swiss-based financial institution that acts as a counterparty to national central banks — has declared that stock markets are currently in a "euphoric" state and has urged central banks globally to begin tightening interest rate policies now while economies are growing rather than wait for another recession, when it will be too late. Those are scary words, coming from a set of economists whose job it is to monitor how capable central banks are of responding to economic conditions with flexible monetary policy. The subtext (and not-so-subtext) of...

Here is a list of businesses claimed to have been targeted with operation "Choke Point".   The administration characterization of "high risk" seems to  translate into "Those I do not like."  These  "High Risk" merchant categories are listed on an fdic.gov site: Ammunition SalesCable Box De-scramblersCoin DealersCredit Card SchemesCredit Repair ServicesDating ServicesDebt Consolidation ScamsDrug ParaphernaliaEscort ServicesFirearms SalesFireworks SalesGet Rich ProductsGovernment GrantsHome-Based CharitiesLife-Time Guarantees Life-Time MembershipsLottery SalesMailing Lists/Personal InfoMoney Transfer Networks On-line GamblingPayDay LoansPharmaceutical SalesPonzi SchemesPornographyPyramid-Type SalesRacist MaterialsSurveillance EquipmentTelemarketingTobacco SalesTravel Clubs  Some of these companies/activities will be offensive to some.  Others will be astonished that they are included on a...

The House Committee on Oversight and Government reform has compiled a scathing report on the Department of Justice's “Operation Choke Point” program that critics believe is aimed at “targeting industries deemed objectionable” by the Obama administration. The report, released Thursday by panel chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., accuses the Justice Department of abusing its authority by going after the payday lending industry and other merchants and working to put them out of business. According to the report, the Justice Department “secretly” discouraged banks from conducting business with groups deemed to be “high risk,” for triggering a federal investigation. Sign Up for...

It is a rare occurrence for conversations about contemporary art to happen outside of the insular circles of the art world. Contemporary art, by and large, exists as a bubble. So it should come as no great surprise that other “bubbles” are the only thing that may collide with contemporary art. Like, for instance, the elite insider world of high finance that purchases much contemporary art at auction. Last week, one such collision came to light when Credit Suisse was criminally convicted for assisting tax evasion and further revealed what more and more people realize: art can be quite the...

The general outline is the DOJ and bank regulators are putting the screws to banks and other third-party payment processors to refuse banking services to companies and industries that are deemed to pose a “reputation risk” to the bank. Most controversially, the list of dubious industries is populated by enterprises that are entirely, or at least generally, legal. The ability to destroy legal industries through secret actions to deprive them of banking services has obvious political consequences. For example, it was reported last week that firearms shops are alleging that Operation Choke Point is being used to pressure banks into...

It's easy: Let the banks fail and give the money to American taxpayers instead Are you still angry that Washington forced Main Street to bail out Wall Street during the Great Recession? Timothy Geithner can live with that. In his new book, Stress Test: Reflections on Financial Crises, the former Obama Treasury secretary insists government needed to stop the panic by whatever means necessary. During a five-alarm inferno, the thinking goes, it's smarter to focus on extinguishing the blaze than punishing the arsonists. And to Geithner, dissenters are misguided purveyors of "Old Testament vengeance" and "moral hazard fundamentalists." Geithner is...