Free Republic

The United States on Wednesday imposed sanctions on a Hungary-based bank linked to Russia, marking a new low point in Hungary’s relationship with Washington. The U.S. Treasury Department announced the penalties, which will target the International Investment Bank (IIB), a controversial institution located in Budapest with ties to the Russian state. The bank’s presence in Hungary has drawn the ire of Western officials, who fear it could be used for Russian intelligence operations inside Europe. Speaking to reporters in Budapest on Wednesday afternoon, U.S. Ambassador to Hungary David Pressman said Washington had repeatedly shared information with Hungarian counterparts about how...

Government consumer watchdog claims Capital One misled consumers.. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) is suing Capital One, alleging the bank illegally misled customers by not notifying them of account options that paid higher interest rates. The federal government's consumer watchdog claims Capital One's practices meant millions of customers missed out on a collective $2 billion they could have made in interest payments. ... CFPB accused Capital One of promising depositors that their 360 Savings account provided one of the nation's "top," "best" and "highest" interest rates but froze their rate at just 0.30% even as deposit rates rose nationwide....

Police in Northern Colorado are looking for a man they believe tried to rob a bank and failed to leave with any money. It happened on Dec. 17 in Loveland. Loveland police say a man walked in to the First National Bank, located at 750 North Lincoln Avenue, and handed the teller a note. His handwriting was allegedly almost completely illegible and the teller had a hard time reading it. While the teller was struggling to read the note, the man reportedly got frustrated and quickly left the bank. The man was wearing a brown hoodie, a green baseball cap...

The central bank of Syria in Damascus - was looted a few minutes ago. Armed jihadists entered and looted boxes of money.

Incoming First Lady Melania Trump opened up about the persecution she’s endured since leaving the White House in 2021. Trump shared her experience with Fox News’ Maria Bartiromo in an Oct. 7 interview. Trump said the persecution began as soon as President-elect Donald Trump announced his decision to run for president in 2015 but that it continued after leaving the White House. ... She recounted a time that a bank — not a branch but an entire company — dropped her as a customer. “The bank suddenly informed me they will not be able to do business with me anymore,”...

A brazen crew of South American bank bandits disguised themselves as construction workers and used blowtorches, cellphone jammers and other “sophisticated tactics” to snatch at least $4 million in a string of wild West Coast heists, according to federal authorities who busted them. The group of 11 thieves — most of whom hail from Chile — hit at least 29 banks and credit unions in California, Oregon and Washington between May and October, according to federal prosecutors. The alleged ringleader, Alex Moyano Morales, 24, is wanted by Immigrations and Customs Enforcement but there are no records of officials encountering him...

Friday, The First National Bank of Lindsay was closed by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) appointed as receiver. The OCC acted after identifying false and deceptive bank records and other information suggesting fraud that revealed depletion of the bank’s capital. The OCC also found that the bank was in an unsafe or unsound condition to transact business and that the bank’s assets were less than its obligations to its creditors and others.

Police have charged a former employee of one local credit union with felony grand larceny for allegedly making unauthorized withdrawals from the accounts of customers. 21-year-old Aixa Resendiz is accused of taking $60,000 from those accounts when she worked as a banker at the ESL Federal Credit Union in Hopewell. The Clifton Springs resident is accused of making unauthorized withdrawals between March and August of this year. The Ontario County Sheriff’s Office said ESL has cooperated fully with this investigation and they have reimbursed the customers. The fact that a defendant has been charged with a crime is merely an...

A new TikTok trend has people posting their attempts to exploit a “glitch” in Chase bank ATMs that offers “infinite free money” — but quickly learning that a bank and its money are not so easily parted. Experts say the “glitch” videos look an awful lot like check fraud — one of the oldest scams in the book. Videos urging customers at the bank to take advantage of the “glitch” quickly took off online, prompting people to deposit fake checks for large sums of money. The glitch would credit some of the sham deposits to the customers’ accounts before the...

The Central Bank of Iran (CBI) and other banks were targeted on Wednesday as part of a significant cyber attack that led to widespread disruptions in the country's banking system, Iran International reported. #BREAKING A major cyberattack has targeted the Central Bank of Iran (CBI) and several other banks, leading to widespread disruptions in the country’s banking system, @IranIntl has learned. Initial assessments indicate this could be one of the largest cyberattacks ever against… pic.twitter.com/6TiuNrxosL — Iran International English (@IranIntl_En) August 14, 2024 According to reports, all the computer systems of the banks in Iran were paralyzed following the cyber...

Chase Bank customers could see some additional charges in the not too distant future. The country’s biggest retail bank is warning that it might begin charging customers for their accounts. That would impact some 86 million customers. The potential charges, says Marianne Lake, CEO of consumer and community banking at JPMorgan, are a result of new regulatory rules that cap overdraft and late fees. Lake says Chase will be passing along those increased expenses to customers, which would put an end to now-free services such as checking accounts and wealth management tools. And she says she expects other banks will...

For three weeks, 85,000 Yotta customers with a combined $112 million in savings have been locked out of their accounts, CEO and co-founder Adam Moelis ... The disruption, caused by a dispute between fintech middleman Synapse and Tennessee-based Evolve Bank & Trust, has upended lives... “We never imagined a scenario like this could play out and that no regulator would step in and help,” . ... his company has been a source of deep pain for thousands of customers who relied on Yotta accounts to receive paychecks, pay bills and save for emergencies. The crisis began May 11, when a...

Incredible footage has been released of the moment a sheriff's sniper killed a suspect by shooting directly through a computer monitor. Sterling Ramon Alavache was holding two Bank of America workers in Florida at knifepoint while claiming to have a bomb. Officers had already tried to get the would-be bank robber to surrender but instead Alavache decided instead to take two hostages. The 36-year-old then put one of them in a headlock and held a knife to her throat - and that's when a SWAT team's sheriff's sniper decided to end the siege. With remarkable precision, the bullet was fired...

Major explosion at a building in Youngstown, Ohio: Multiple injuries reported Multiple injuries were reported after a major explosion, allegedly at a Chase Bank building, from a presumed natural gas leak occurred in downtown Youngstown, Ohio.

Adnan Deumic, a 25-year-old London-based trader at Bank of America died Thursday evening — just two weeks after the death of Leo Lukenas III, a banker who had been working 100-hour work weeks at the financial giant, The Post has learned. Deumic was playing in a casual “five-a-side” charity soccer tournament with other finance employees when he fell suddenly and was administered CPR, a source with knowledge of the matter said. While the cause of death is unknown, this person told The Post cardiac arrest is suspected. “The death of our teammate is a tragedy, and we are shocked by...

US regulators have seized Republic First Bancorp and agreed to sell it to Fulton Bank, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. said Friday, underscoring the challenges facing regional banks a year after the collapse of three peers. The Philadelphia-based bank, which had abandoned funding talks with a group of investors, was seized by the Pennsylvania Department of Banking and Securities. The FDIC, appointed as a receiver, said Fulton Bank, a unit of Fulton Financial, will assume substantially all deposits and purchase all the assets of Republic Bank to “protect depositors.” Republic Bank had about $6 billion in total assets and $4...

-A year after Silicon Valley Bank's failure, less than half of U.S. banks have established borrowing capacity by pledging collateral at the Federal Reserve's emergency lending facility, according to Fed data released on Friday. That's despite a crescendo of calls from financial regulators for banks to make sure they can access the Fed's discount window quickly if trouble arises. But the data also showed some real progress, with an increase in the number of banks signing up and a jump in the amount of total collateral pledged. SVB's inability to access the window in March of last year in the...

HANOI, Vietnam (AP) — Real estate tycoon Truong My Lan was sentenced Thursday to death by a court in Ho Chi Minh City in southern Vietnam in the country’s largest financial fraud case ever, state media Vietnam Net said. The 67-year-old chair of the real estate company Van Thinh Phat was formally charged with fraud amounting to $12.5 billion — nearly 3% of the country’s 2022 GDP. Lan illegally controlled Saigon Joint Stock Commercial Bank between 2012 and 2022 and allowed 2,500 loans that resulted in losses of $27 billion to the bank, reported state media VnExpress. The court asked...

The U.S. and China are deepening co-operation on financial stability issues, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said on Monday, with more simulations of financial shocks due after a recent exercise on tackling the failure of a large bank. Wrapping up four days of meetings in China, Yellen issued a stern warning to Chinese banks that facilitating transactions providing material support or dual-use goods to Russia for its Ukraine war effort would lead to "significant consequences."

Law enforcement officers converged on a Queens intersection where a grenade was found outside a Chase Bank Tuesday, authorities said. No injuries were reported.