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The idea of a bank deposit tax was raised by Labor in 2013 and was criticised by Tony Abbott at the time. Assistant Treasurer Josh Frydenberg has indicated an announcement on the new tax could be made before the budget. The Government is heading for a fight with the banking industry, which has warned it will have to pass the cost back onto customers. Mr Frydenberg is a member of the Government's Expenditure Review Committee but has refused to provide any details

Something stunning took place earlier this week, and it quietly snuck by, unnoticed by anyone as the "all important" FOMC meeting was looming. That something could have been taken straight out of the playbook of either Cyprus, or Greece, or the USSR "evil empire", or all three. This is how the WSJ explained it: The U.S. Justice Department’s criminal head said banks may need to go beyond filing suspicious activity reports when they encounter a risky customer.

Big Wall Street banks are so upset with U.S. Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren's call for them to be broken up that some have discussed withholding campaign donations to Senate Democrats in symbolic protest, sources familiar with the discussions said. Representatives from Citigroup, JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs and Bank of America, have met to discuss ways to urge Democrats, including Warren and Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown, to soften their party's tone toward Wall Street, sources familiar with the discussions said this week.

The Justice Department is ordering bank employees to consider calling the cops on customers who withdraw $5,000 dollars or more, a chilling example of how the war on cash is intensifying. Banks are already required to file ‘suspicious activity reports’ on their customers, with threats of fines and even jail time for directors if financial institutions don’t meet quotas. But as investor and financial blogger Simon Black points out, last week, “A senior official from the Justice Department spoke to a group of bankers about the need for them to rat out their customers to the police.” SPECIAL: Make Barack...

GOP power broker Haley Barbour’s lobby shop, BGR Group, represents a Russian bank that has financed a company that helped build Iran’s Bushehr nuclear power plant, according to corporate documents and lobbying disclosure records. The bank is owned by a secretive oligarch, Mikhail Fridman, who has met at least twice with White House officials in the last few years, according to visitor logs.

In 2008, the nation entered into a financial crisis widely believed to have been caused by excesses in the residential mortgage industry. By 2010, the nation thought it had put in place a series of measures that not only would resolve the crisis but would insure that it never happened again. Yet, here we are in 2015 looking at another potential mortgage crisis. Only this time it is different. In 2008, funds flowed in waves into the mortgage industry. In 2015, it appears the funds are drying up. The solutions to the problem in 2010 and thereafter included: Suing and...

The questioner (Rep. Richard Shelby, R AL) just asked Mrs. Yellen if foreign banks operating in the US were held to the same capital standards as US banks. She responded [paraphrase] that "we have asked foreign banks to create holding companies in the US to contain their US operations"...Meaning that, apparently, such banks are not held to the same capitalization standards (6 years into the Great Financial Crisis) and have therefore a competitive advantage.

In a report to be published on Monday, and provided in advance to The New York Times, Kaspersky Lab says that the scope of this attack on more than 100 banks and other financial institutions in 30 nations could make it one of the largest bank thefts ever — and one conducted without the usual signs of robbery. The Moscow-based firm says that because of nondisclosure agreements with the banks that were hit, it cannot name them. Officials at the White House and the F.B.I. have been briefed on the findings, but say that it will take time to confirm...

Looks like Bank of America is down. I was just told to call back on Monday to pay my credit card bill. WOW.

Somalis living in the Twin Cities are begging Minnesota’s elected officials to help find a way to safely wire money back to families living in the Horn of Africa after a California bank abruptly ceased wiring cash to the troubled country over the weekend. The decision by Merchants Bank to stop that part of its operations last Friday caught Somalis, who use money service businesses to wire money abroad, off-guard in communities across the United States. Of the more than 30,000 Somali immigrants living in the Twin Cities, 80 percent of them use money service businesses to send money abroad,...

In what seems to be a retreat from its Operation Choke Point initiative, the FDIC has announced new regulatory guidance that instructs banks to judge their relationships with their customers on a case-by-case basis, rather than refusing to provide banking services to entire categories of industries. From the Press Release: The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) issued a Financial Institution Letter today encouraging supervised institutions to take a risk-based approach in assessing individual customer relationships, rather than declining to provide banking services to entire categories of customers without regard to the risks presented by an individual customer or the financial...

Cubs legend Ernie Banks has died, according to a Cubs source. This is a developing news story, check back for details.

Last month, Senator Dianne Feinstein and other Democrats on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence released the executive summary of their final report investigating the CIA's controversial detention and interrogation program. As part of their study, the Democrats compiled twenty case studies, which were intended to address claims made by the CIA regarding the efficacy of its interrogations. One of those case studies focused on the identification and arrest of Ali Saleh Kahlah al Marri, who was freed from a US prison just days ago. Al Marri served as a "sleeper" operative for al Qaeda inside the US in 2001....

There’s blood on the Street. In a wild swing of the ax that has shocked many pundits, Wall Street’s biggest banks have slashed nearly 50,000 jobs, and bonuses and expense money are being cut as profit opportunities dry up. And there’s no easy way out, analysts say, because the Fed’s quantitative easing that once rescued the financial system with trillions of cheap dollars is — at least for now — history. But while some analysts were unnerved by the carnage announced by banks last week during their earnings calls, the warning signs were there before — from lower trading and...

All morning, mainstream media has been down-playing the insolvency of various retail-focused FX brokers using words like "contained" and even suggesting retail "moms-and-pops" should not be allowed to trade FX. Now, we get more news from a non-retail institution: -CITIGROUP SAID TO LOSE MORE THAN $150 MLN ON CURRENCY MOVES So should Citi be banned from FX trading too? It appears so. Citi's head of European FX sales is "said to leave" the company. -CITIGROUP HEAD OF EUROPEAN INVESTOR SALES, FX, SAID TO LEAVE

WASHINGTON, June 22 - Under a secret Bush administration program initiated weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks, counterterrorism officials have gained access to financial records from a vast international database and examined banking transactions involving thousands of Americans and others in the United States, according to government and industry officials.

Investors are so nervous that they are basically willing to lose money when they buy some government bonds. It's part of the latest fad in finance that's all the rage: "going negative." The yields on government bonds in Europe and Japan have dipped into the uncharted waters of negative territory. That means buyers of those bonds are essentially taking a loss just to hold onto those assets. They think their money is better off losing a few cents than putting it elsewhere. "It's basically a fee for fear," said Nicholas Colas, chief market strategist at ConvergEx. "Fear of deflation, fear...

Amrish Mahajan, former president of failed Mutual Bank of Harvey and a major fundraiser for imprisoned former Gov. Rod Blagojevich, has been barred from future participation in the banking industry under a newly released regulatory order. Mr. Mahajan consented, without admitting or denying unsafe or unsound banking practices, to a May 1 order by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. prohibiting him from participating “in any manner” in the conduct of the affairs of any federally insured institution. ... Mr. Mahajan was known for his political connections, particularly to Mr. Blagojevich. Mutual Bank briefly entered the realm of national politics after...

January 09, 2015 Dr Jeff Lewis A subscriber sent me the following note recently: You know I was driving home tonight and was observing all the cars building etc. I thought maybe I am nuts this can't all stop. Then I also said to myself this is an illusion that massive un-payable debt has created. I hope for all of our sakes the former wins because the latter would be unbearable. Do you honestly believe a collapse war and poverty is truly going to happen? What's the difference even if you have a ton of silver people just would take...

The end times are upon us. I find myself in agreement with not just Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), but House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA). It’s not just me. Right Wing News’ John Hawkins — not exactly a cheerleader for bipartisan consensus — is publicly standing with Warren, Pelosi, and their liberal allies in the House and Senate. As have conservative Senators Mike Lee (R-UT) and Ted Cruz (R-TX), Townhall.com’s Amy Otto, and Tea Party Patriots, among many others. And I’m not only opposed to the omnibus bill that squeaked through the House and may fail in the Senate. I’m...