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Moody’s Investors Service on Wednesday downgraded French banks Credit Agricole SA and Societe Generale SA as the credit-rating company also said it has become increasingly concerned about the funding and liquidity needs of the lenders. Moody’s had said in June that it was considering downgrading France’s top three listed banks because of their exposure to Greek debt and said Wednesday that it is still reviewing BNP Paribas. The announcements came after big swings for French-bank stocks in recent days amid reports that downgrades were imminent and as investors became increasingly nervous about the banks’ funding situation. Shares in Credit Agricole...

U.S. Signed Secret Document to Lift U.N. Sanctions on Iranian Banks Administration backed measures on the same day Tehran released four American citizens from prison By Jay Solomon and Carol E. Lee Sept. 29, 2016 8:02 p.m. ET 0 COMMENTS WASHINGTON—The Obama administration agreed to back the lifting of United Nations sanctions on two Iranian state banks blacklisted for financing Iran’s ballistic-missile program on the same day in January that Tehran released four American citizens from prison, according to U.S. officials and congressional staff briefed on the deliberations. The U.N. sanctions on the two banks weren’t initially to be lifted...

German officials could be about to find themselves in an uncomfortable position: Being called on to show they're ready to rescue a bank in a part of the world where such operations are considered taboo. Deutsche Bank came under intensified market fire Thursday, the latest salvo being a Bloomberg report that a small number of hedge funds are trimming their sails at the German bank. In a broad perspective, the move would represent a minor dent in Deutsche's derivatives clearing business. Barry Bausano, chairman of Deutsche's hedge fund business, told CNBC on Thursday that while there have been some outflows,...

Wells Fargo Exec Who Headed Phony Accounts Unit Collected $125 Million Wells Fargo & Co’s “sandbagger”-in-chief is leaving the giant bank with an enormous pay day—$124.6 million. In fact, despite beefed-up “clawback” provisions instituted by the bank shortly after the financial crisis, and the recent revelations of massive misconduct, it does not appear that Wells Fargo is requiring its former consumer banking chief Carrie Tolstedt to give back any of her nine-figure pay. Until recently, Tolstedt was in charge of the unit where Wells Fargo employees opened more than 2 million largely unauthorized customer accounts—a seemingly routine practice that employees...

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.

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...