Business Blog

  Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac won’t be taking part in the Obama administration’s home mortgage principal reduction program. That’s bad news for underwater homeowners but cause for rounds of high-fives among executives in the nation’s financial sector. The setback for homeowners came Tuesday when Federal Housing Finance Agency Acting Director Ed DeMarco bowed to [...]

Who would have expected this reaction? The head of the American Bankers Association is disappointed and dismayed by the about-face Citigroup chairman emeritus Sandy Weill has done on breaking up the nation’s big banks. Push the pause button on such thinking, Frank Keating, ABA president & CEO, urges. Weill, often described as godfather to the [...]

The American Bankers Association warned a House financial  services subcommittee Thursday that the cumulative impact of years of added regulations has pushed the nation’s community banks to the tipping point. ABA representatives specially cited dramatically increasing compliance costs – estimated at $50 billion annually — and said they threaten the future of community banks. William [...]

U.S. military veterans are now eligible to earn the American Institute of Banking’s new (AIB) Military Banking Operations Diploma as part of their educational benefits provided by the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). The VA approved the training program as a way of assisting veterans’ post-service careers. To make the program even more attractive to [...]

The American Bankers Association reacted harshly Monday to President Obama’s proposal to levy a 10-year tax on the banking industry that would raise $61 billion to help U.S. homeowners refinance. Obama had previously proposed a “financial crisis responsibility fee” on financial firms with assets exceeding $50 billion. That idea has been changed into a proposal [...]

Consumer delinquencies fell in seven of 11 loan categories in the third quarter of 2011, with two categories – bank cards and home equity lines of credit – holding virtually steady, the American Bankers Association reports. The composite ratio, which tracks delinquencies in eight closed-end installment loan categories, fell 29 basis points to 2.59 percent [...]

By Ted Carter The American Bankers Association says legislation introduced in the Senate Tuesday gives it hope that banks can avoid a pending cut in the fees they receive from merchants on debit card transactions. The so-called Durbin amendment, named after sponsor Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, mandates the Federal Reserve’s Board of Governors put [...]