Free Republic

We sat down across the table from each other and I saw the two pieces of paper: my college bills created by my father. Dad slid the first one across the table, calmly stating this would be the amount I’d owe if I went to College A. Then he slid the second paper across explaining and this is what I’d need to pay for College B. The first bill said $80,000. The second said $0. Sounds like a no-brainer – but keep in mind I was a 17-year-old who fantasized about a very specific type of college experience. I immediately...

A debt-ridden student blew $1.3 million on sports cars, speed boats, strippers and cocaine after a bank error gave him an unlimited overdraft. Wannabe playboy Luke Moore lived the high life for two years before he was caught by cops and jailed on fraud charges. The Australian treated himself to luxury holidays, a $57,000 Aston Martin, a $22,000 Maserati and a $33,000 boat while living the ultimate bachelor lifestyle. But he was slapped with a four-year jail term last year after the banking glitch came to light. Moore, 29, went free last week after winning an appeal of his conviction...

At least 27 people have been injured after a man set fire to a branch of the Commonwealth Bank of Australia in the Melbourne suburb of Springvale, according to local media reports. Police say the man has been hospitalized in serious condition. Several people who were inside the bank at the time of the incident are being treated for serious burns. Twenty-one people, including three children, are being treated for smoke inhalation, The Age reported.

SIX people are in a critical condition and 27 people were injured after a fire at a Commonwealth Bank branch in Springvale in Melbourne’s southeast. Police said a man set himself alight after walking into the bank with a flammable accelerant, about 11.30am. Two men in their 20s, a man in his 60s, a man in his 70s, a woman in her 20s and another man were taken to the Alfred suffering serious burns. Ambulance Victoria said 21 other people — including a toddler and a person in their 80s — were treated for breathing problems and taken to hospital....

<p>Bank of America has a recession warning that's downright 'scary'</p> <p>There's a chilling trend in the market, and it could wreak havoc on your portfolio, a top market watcher said.</p> <p>"We are seven years into a full-fledged, all out, central bankers doing everything they can to stimulate demand," Bank of America-Merrill Lynch's head of U.S. equity and quantitative strategy Savita Subramanian recently warned on CNBC's " Fast Money ."</p>

<p>Everyone hates paying bank fees. But imagine paying fees on a ghost account you didn't even sign up for.</p> <p>That's exactly what happened to Wells Fargo customers nationwide.</p> <p>On Thursday, federal regulators said Wells Fargo employees secretly created millions of unauthorized bank and credit card accounts -- without their customers knowing it -- since 2011.</p>

“A ballerina yesterday. An engineer today. Let’s get them ready for tomorrow,” one ad read. The ads were intended to celebrate the aspirations of young people, but fell short of the goal, the company said in an apology on its Twitter account. “An actor yesterday. A botanist today. Let’s get them ready for tomorrow,” another ad read. The bank, which is based in San Francisco and has its largest employment hub in Charlotte, tweeted out an apology Saturday. The bank said it gave $93 million last year in support of the arts, culture and education. We offer our sincere apology...

http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/698305/Deutsche-Bank-financial-crisis-EU-Angela-Merkel 'We should nationalise German banks' Warning Deutsche Bank teetering on edge of CRISIS A TOP economist has warned that Germany's biggest bank is teetering on the edge of crisis and they only way to protect it against future shocks is to nationalise it. By SIMON OSBORNE 20:03, Tue, Aug 9, 2016 | UPDATED: 21:00, Tue, Aug 9, 2016 Germany central bank, the Deutsche Bank, would be hit hard in a new financial crisis Martin Hellwig said stress tests carried out by the European Central Bank revealed the Deutsche Bank would be left in a precarious position in the event of...

On the off chance the US didn't already have a big enough problem thanks to a staggering $1.3 trillion in student loans which contrary to White House' claims, are crushing an entire generation under their interest expense weight, earlier today none other than billionaire Jeff Bezos announced he was entering the student loan business, when Amazon unveiled a partnership with Wells Fargo in which the bank’s student-lending arm would offer interest-rate discounts to select Amazon shoppers. In Amazon's latest attempt to entice shoppers into its premium Prime program, Wells Fargo will cut half a percentage point from its interest rate...

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. …

Germany’s largest lender is set to shut over a quarter of its branches across the country as the company goes through a major restructuring process. The closures are set to take place over the next few months, with 188 of Deutsche Bank’s 723 branches nationwide due to close their doors. […] After recording colossal losses of around €7 billion in 2015, the Frankfurt lender is desperately seeking ways to cut costs. […] The bank said it hopes to redirect funds to digital banking, in which it hopes to invest €750 million by 2020. …

A New Hampshire woman was arrested and charged with assault after police say she attacked a bank manager with a hole punch on Thursday. Leanne E. Yerian, 35, of Salem, allegedly attacked a Bank of America manager just after 4 p.m. when the manager refused to cash a check for her. Yerian picked up a metal hole punch from the desk and hit the manager on the head, according to the Salem Police Department. “The woman then jumped on the manager, pulled her hair, and slammed her up against the wall,” said police.

A 1.4GB trove of internal documents, files and sensitive financial data purporting to be from the Qatar National Bank (QNB) has been leaked online. The massive data dump appears to contain hundreds of thousands of records including customer transaction logs, personal identification numbers and credit card data. Additionally, dozens of separate folders consist of information on everything from Al Jazeera journalists to what appears to be the Al-Thani Qatar Royal Family. However, it is a folder listed as "SPY, Intelligence" that quickly catches the eye. Upon analysis, it contains a slew of records listed as Ministry of Defence, MI6 (the...

Police hunt two Brazilian bank robbers who wrapped themselves head-to-toe in TINFOIL in successful bid to beat alarm systemPolice in Brazil are hunting two bank robbers who wrapped themselves up in tin foil in a bizarre attempt to fool its alarm system. The daring ruse worked and the alarm didn't sound - but an armed police response unit was mobilised after they were picked up moving around inside the bank in their odd disguises on a central CCTV monitoring system. An accomplice believed to have been acting as a lookout was arrested - but the two men whose faces were...

The South Point Police Department are currently investigating a robbery at the U.S. Bank in South Point, Ohio. The bank is on 4th street, and people are being asked to stay clear of the area. The suspect is considered armed and dangerous, and the police believe that he has a handgun. The suspect is wearing a mask of the comic book and movie character Deadpool. The South Point Police Department are saying the suspect is a white male, weight around 200 pounds, and somewhere between 5'9" and 5'11". VIDEO AND PIC ON LINK

KYLE BASS: There's a 'ticking time bomb' in China Julia La Roche Feb. 10, 2016, 3:29 PM Hedge fund manager J. Kyle Bass, the founder of Dallas-based Hayman Capital, has a warning about a "ticking time bomb" in the Chinese banking system. Over the last ten years, China's banking system has grown from less than $3 trillion to $34 trillion, equivalent to around 340% of Chinese GDP. To put it in perspective, the US banking system had about $16.5 trillion of assets heading into the financial crisis, equivalent to 100% of US GDP. "Credit has never grown faster or larger...

One of the most surprising comments this year came from a closed session on fintech where I sat next to someone in policy circles who argued that we should move quickly to a cashless economy so that we could introduce negative rates well below 1% – as they were concerned that Larry Summers' secular stagnation was indeed playing out and we would be stuck with negative rates for a decade in Europe. They felt below (1.5)% depositors would start to hoard notes, leading to yet further complexities for monetary policy.

Deutsche Bank Trust Co. Americas ratcheted up its battle with Donald Trump, claiming the hard-charging developer personally owes it $40 million after defaulting on a $640 million construction loan for Trump International Hotel & Tower in Chicago. On Friday, Deutsche, the main lender on Trump's development alongside the Chicago River, filed suit against Trump in New York State Supreme Court in Manhattan.It is the second suit filed within a month over the high-profile project under way at 401 N. Wabash Ave., which at 92 stories has already become a dominant figure on Chicago's skyline.-snip-Steven Molo, an attorney representing Deutsche, declined...

HSBC bank cuts off services to Muslim charityMove against Islamic Relief is latest to affect Muslim groups in the UK but the bank denies motives are religious. Banking giant HSBC has stopped offering financial services to the charity Islamic Relief, which becomes the latest Muslim organisation to have its ties with the company cut. Islamic Relief UK was told by HSBC its activities in "high-risk jurisdictions" posed a challenge to the bank due to pressure from US authorities to deal with money laundering, according to a statement published on the charity's website on Monday.

Britain's leading anti-Israel organization has had its bank accounts closed, after it was revealed it may have been "inadvertently" funding Palestinian terrorism. The radical Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) - which counts UK Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn as one of its patrons - was informed by the Co-operative Bank that its accounts were being closed due to the "high risk" destinations of its funds, many of which are donated to Hamas-linked agencies and other extremist groups in Gaza, Judea and Samaria. ...