Free Republic

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.

Introducing a Bank Recapitalization “Bail-in” Regime To protect Canadian taxpayers in the unlikely event of a large bank failure, the Government is proposing to implement a bail-in regime that would reinforce that bank shareholders and creditors are responsible for the bank’s risks—not taxpayers. This would allow authorities to convert eligible long-term debt of a failing systemically important bank into common shares to recapitalize the bank and allow it to remain open and operating. Such a measure is in line with international efforts to address the potential risks to the financial system and broader economy of institutions perceived as “too-big-to-fail”. The...

In the crash of 2008 governments "bailed out" banks with billions of dollars. The next time around banks will be permitted to seize your deposits and exchange them for shares, shares in a failed bank. On June 22, 2016 Bill C15 became law along with its controversial “Bail-In Regime”. In the crash of 2008 governments “bailed out” banks with billions of dollars. The next time around banks will be permitted to seize your deposits and exchange them for shares, shares in a failed bank. Some say that Canadian banks are so strong Canadians don’t have to worry. But the experts...

Blockchain technology is expected to change the way financial organizations conduct business with banks implementing distributed ledger technology (DLT) projects by 2017, according to the World Economic Forum. After 12 months of research which saw the WEF engage over 200 industry leaders and subject matter experts through interviews and multi-stakeholder workshops, the organization compiled a 130-page report on the impact distributed ledger technology (DLT), also known as blockchain, will have on the financial infrastructure’s future. WEF’s ‘The Future of Financial Infrastructure’ report found that ‘applications of DLT will differ by use case, each leveraging the technology in different ways for...

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.

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...

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...

NEW YORK – President Obama’s attorney-general nominee, Loretta Lynch, admitted to the Senate Judiciary Committee that her investigators in the money-laundering probe of HSBC were aware of evidence compiled by whistleblower John Cruz but she chose, nevertheless, not to bring criminal charges. Lynch provided written answers to questions submitted by committee chairman Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, in a document posted on the panel’s website dated Feb. 18. As WND reported, Lynch’s confirmation vote in the Senate initially was postponed after Sen. David Vitter, R-La., a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, opened the investigation of Lynch’s role in the HSBC...

The AP review of Clinton's calendar — her after-the-fact, official chronology of the events of her four-year term — identified at least 75 meetings with longtime political donors and loyalists, Clinton Foundation contributors and corporate and other outside interests that were either not recorded or listed with identifying details scrubbed. The AP found the omissions by comparing the 1,500-page document with separate planning schedules supplied to Clinton by aides in advance of each day's events. The names of at least 114 outsiders who met with Clinton were missing from her calendar, the records show...

The largest U.S. financial institutions have enough armor to withstand the turmoil of a major and prolonged national and global recession, the Federal Reserve said Thursday. The central bank’s annual “stress tests” show that the 33 largest financial institutions — including JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, Bank of America and Wells Fargo — all hold more capital than at any time since the 2008 financial crisis. They also hold enough capital that, even if faced with billions of dollars in losses from loans as a result of an economic crisis, they would continue to function. The stress tests were created in the...

Security researchers have tied the recent spate of digital breaches on Asian banks to North Korea, in what they say appears to be the first known case of a nation using digital attacks for financial gain. In three recent attacks on banks, researchers working for the digital security firm Symantec said, the thieves deployed a rare piece of code that had been seen in only two previous cases: the hacking attack at Sony Pictures in December 2014 and attacks on banks and media companies in South Korea in 2013. Government officials in the United States and South Korea have blamed...

The developer of the ill-fated Ground Zero Mosque won't relent on his goal of planting a flag on the grave of 3,000 Americans. The New York Post reports that Sharif El-Gamal and his banking partners announced Wednesday that he secured "Sharia-compliant financing" to build a luxury condominium tower and an Islamic museum on the same site as the proposed Ground Zero Mosque -- four blocks away from where the Twin Towers once stood. The $174 million dollar project features a three-story Islamic cultural museum at 51 Park Place and 48 high-end residential condos in a 43-story tower at 45 Park...

On Wednesday, Bernie Sanders had lunch at the Chieftain, a cozy pub near the San Francisco Chronicle. In days gone by, it served as a lunch spot for parched journalists. Earlier, Sanders had addressed a rally in San Jose; he had another scheduled in Vallejo, California, that night. When he exited the Chieftain by a back door onto Howard Street, passers-by shouted out his name. A man who hailed Sanders as his "hero" asked the Democratic presidential hopeful to pose for a photo. There were more selfies with more fans who could not believe their luck in stumbling upon a...

Five major banks and four traders were sued on Wednesday in a private U.S. lawsuit claiming they conspired to rig prices worldwide in a more than $9 trillion market for bonds issued by government-linked organizations and agencies. Bank of America Corp (BAC.N), Credit Agricole SA (CAGR.PA), Credit Suisse Group AG (CSGN.S), Deutsche Bank AG (DBKGn.DE) and Nomura Holdings Inc (8604.T) were accused of secretly agreeing to widen the "bid-ask" spreads they quoted customers of supranational, sub-sovereign and agency (SSA) bonds. The lawsuit filed in Manhattan federal court by the Boston Retirement System said the collusion dates to at least 2005,...

“Negative interest rates” have become a phenomenon with economists and the media. But I’m writing to tell you something about negative interest rates you haven’t heard. You certainly won’t hear about it in the mainstream press. What’s coming at you is a historic event. It’s something our grandchildren will hear stories about, much like the Great Depression or the Cold War. It could send the price of gold much higher in the coming years. If you know what’s coming, it could mean the difference between having lots of free cash in retirement and barely getting by. And please remember this...

ANZ Banking Group and Westpac Banking Corp have discovered they have each approved "hundreds" of home loans backed by fraudulent Chinese income documents, which were allegedly manufactured with the help of dodgy mortgage brokers.

With all the fat-cat bashing from Hillary Clinton and her socialist foe Bernie Sanders, you’d think big banks have never stopped ripping off the poor, downtrodden consumer and are laughing all the way to their own bank vaults at Americans’ expense. The banks, of course, still make money, though increasingly a lot less... ... once-massive industry of huge profit margins and immense power in political circles is in retreat.... ...New regulations like Dodd-Frank, championed and imposed by President Obama and his minions, don’t let banks perform simple tasks... ...on top of the countless billions of dollars in settlements banks are...

The concept of negative interest rates — in which lenders have to pay to lend money or to invest — has gotten a big boost from the International Monetary Fund. The IMF stated this week that world central banks should move to negative interest rates because the extra monetary stimulus would ease lending conditions. Or so they claim. José Viñals, the chief financial counselor and director of monetary and capital markets for the IMF, argued for negative interest rates in a research paper, stating, “Although the experience with negative interest rates is limited, we tentatively conclude that overall, they help...