Free Republic

NEW YORK (AP) -- Recently filed federal charges against President Donald Trump's ex-campaign chairman Paul Manafort could also pose legal and regulatory risks for the banks that loaned him millions of dollars against his New York real estate in recent years. The most serious exposure may be for a Rhode Island-based bank that employed a "conspirator" in Manafort's scheme to obtain a loan he couldn't afford, according to the 32-count new indictment unsealed this week. Dubbed "Lender B" in court papers, Citizens Bank not only lent Manafort $3.4 million based off of fraudulent documents but, in another case, appeared to...

(The Hill) First National Bank of Omaha said Thursday that it would end its business relationship with the National Rifle Association (NRA) after feedback from customers. In a post on its official Twitter account Thursday, the bank announced it would no longer renews its contract with the NRA. Customer feedback has caused us to review our relationship with the NRA,” the bank wrote. “As a result, First National Bank of Omaha will not renew its contract with the National Rifle Association to issue the NRA Visa Card.

Professor Mehrsa Baradaran is the author of The Color of Money: Black Banks and the Racial Wealth Gap, a history of black-owned and black-oriented banks in the United States. It’s not a happy story. Baradaran’s narrative spans the post-Civil War Reconstruction years to the present day and in it she tracks the government’s basic failure to equip former slaves with trustworthy wealth-building institutions in the 1800s, the disastrous effect poverty and racist economic segregation had on black banks’ ability to serve their community, the cynical use of “black capitalism” rhetoric by mainstream politicians (particularly Richard Nixon) to diffuse demands for...

J.P. Morgan Chase, Bank of America and Citigroup said Friday they are no longer allowing customers to buy cryptocurrencies using credit cards. "At this time, we are not processing cryptocurrency purchases using credit cards, due to the volatility and risk involved," a J.P. Morgan Chase spokesperson said in a statement to CNBC. "We will review the issue as the market evolves."

In a rare move, the Federal Reserve announced Friday that it is restricting Wells Fargo's growth and demanding the replacement of four board members in response to "widespread consumer abuses and compliance breakdowns" at the bank. *snip* The move to snuff its growth comes after the bank admitted in 2016 to creating potentially millions of fake bank accounts at the expense of unsuspecting customers.

Dec 29 (Reuters) - Zach Lazarus, chief executive officer of A Green Alternative, a marijuana dispensary in San Diego, California, has lost count every time he re-opened a bank account after it was closed because of his connection to the cannabis industry. Lazarus has had to play a game of "whack-a-mole" with banks, likening his frustrations to a popular arcade game in which a player repeatedly gets rid of something only to have it re-appear somewhere else. Lazarus and other marijuana business owners in the $8 billion industry resort to cash-only transactions for business and to pay employees because they...

Bank of America has joined the parade of American companies celebrating tax cuts by giving its employees a special year-end bonus. Brian Moynihan, the bank’s chief executive, sent an email to employees citing the benefits to the company from the lower corporate tax rate. “In the spirit of shared success, we intend to pass some of those benefits along immediately. U.S. employees making up to $150,000 per year in total compensation–around 145,000 teammates–will receive a one-time bonus of $1,000 by year-end,” Moynihan wrote. The bank also said that it expected to invest more in technology and in cities around the...

A federal judge on Tuesday refused to block President Trump’s pick to be the temporary leader of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, denying a request by a high-ranking agency employee that she be put in charge instead. In turning down Leandra English’s request for a temporary restraining order, U.S. District Judge Timothy J. Kelly acknowledged that the case raised constitutional questions, but he ruled that White House budget director Mick Mulvaney can remain acting CFPB director. Former CFPB litigation counsel Deepak Gupta, representing English, said they would weigh their options to resolve an issue they say has left the six-year...

Extortion: The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is diverting potentially millions of dollars in settlement payments for alleged victims of lending bias to a slush fund for poverty groups tied to the Democratic Party. We've seen this before at the Justice Department, which Congress earlier this year scolded for "shortchanging" alleged victims of Bank of America and Citibank the same way. Justice funneled at least $150 million into a slush fund for Democratic interests, unconstitutionally avoiding Congress. Now, a little-noticed item on the CFPB's website reveals the powerful new agency is launching its own scheme to provide backdoor funding for nonprofit...

President Donald Trump on Wednesday signed the repeal of a banking rule that would have allowed consumers to join together to sue their bank or credit card company to resolve financial disputes. The president signed the measure at the White House in private. Journalists were not present to witness the signing.The Republican-led Senate narrowly voted to repeal the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s regulation, which the banking industry had been seeking to roll back. The Trump administration and Republicans have pushed to undo regulations they say harm the free market and lead to frivolous lawsuits. …

WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House is welcoming a congressional measure killing the ability of millions of Americans to band together to sue bank or credit card companies to resolve financial disputes in a major win for Wall Street. The Senate narrowly voted late Tuesday night to nullify the rule, with Vice President Mike Pence casting the final vote to break a 50-50 tie. The measure now goes to President Donald Trump for his signature. "President Donald J. Trump applauds the Congress for passing," the resolution, the White House said in a statement shortly after the vote that highlighted its...

[I begin] with the story of a series of Socialist scholars conferences that Barack Obama attended when he lived in New York City between the years 1983 and 1985. And when I finally reconstructed what had gone on at these Socialist conferences that Barack Obama attended, I truly was amazed because what I saw was a kind of map of Barack Obama’s entire subsequent political career. It was at this Socialist conferences in New York in the mid-’80s that Barack Obama encountered the groups, the strategies, and the mentors who would guide him throughout his entire political career. [T]hese Socialist...

They say that cash is king, but newer and more convenient payment methods are gunning for the crown. These days, more and more countries are adopting cashless payments, which includes credit card purchases, contactless payments, mobile banking apps and digital options like Apple Pay. To see which countries were adopting cashless the quickest, Forex, a global travel site, conducted a study comparing 20 of the world’s largest economies. In the report, Canada was singled out as the country most embracing cashless technology, which could be attributed to its population changing attitudes that began several years ago. A recent survey in...

When Hurricane Maria knocked out power in Puerto Rico, residents there realized they were going to need physical cash — and a lot of it. Bloomberg reported yesterday that the Fed was forced to fly a planeload of cash to the Island to help avert disaster: William Dudley, the New York Fed president, put the word out within minutes, and ultimately a jet loaded with an undisclosed amount of cash landed on the stricken island...[Business executive in Puerto Rico] described corporate clients’ urgent requests for hundreds of thousands in cash to meet payrolls, and the challenge of finding enough armored cars to satisfy endless demand at...

Ranking US lawmaker seeks sanctions on 12 Chinese banks over N. Korea WASHINGTON -- A ranking American lawmaker has asked the US government to sanction 12 large Chinese banks as part of efforts to cut off North Korea's access to the international financial system, an informed source said Wednesday. The measures, if implemented, would mark a significant increase in pressure on China to rein in North Korea's nuclear and ballistic missile programs. They could also endanger US-China ties. The list, submitted by House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Rep. Ed Royce (R-CA), includes the world's largest bank, Industrial and Commercial Bank...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Justice Department on Monday charged Deutsche Bank's former head of subprime mortgage trading with civil fraud in connection with conduct dating back to the 2007-2009 financial crisis. Paul Mangione, the former trader, is accused in the complaint of misrepresenting information about the loans underpinning two residential mortgage-backed securities that were sold to investors. The government's case against the former trader, filed in a federal court in Brooklyn, came after the bank in January reached a $7.2 billion settlement in a related case over risky mortgage securities sold to investors.

A federal judge in San Francisco has refused to dismiss a lawsuit accusing Wells Fargo bank of denying loans to immigrants who came to the U.S. as youngsters and have been allowed to remain here. Denial of loans based on citizenship status violates a federal law, passed in 1870, and a California civil rights law, U.S. District Judge Maxine Chesney said Thursday in rejecting the bank’s attempt to dismiss the proposed nationwide class-action suit. Wells Fargo, according to the suit, has a policy of granting loans only to U.S. citizens or to noncitizens who have become permanent legal residents and...

President Obama never was shy about using his phone and pen to achieve what he could not get from Congress on regulatory matters. But documents revealed last week show the Obama administration may have been willing to get around congressional decisions on spending by using a slush fund of sorts funded by the profits of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, the two government-sponsored home loan giants. Fannie and Freddie are federally chartered enterprises which buy mortgage loans from banks and bundle them into securities that are sold to investors, thus freeing up capital so that banks can make more home...

In Washington, it’s never about what they tell you it’s about. So take this to the bank: The case of Imran Awan, Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s mysterious Pakistani IT guy, is not about bank fraud. [Snip] Awan and his family cabal of fraudsters had access for years to the e-mails and other electronic files of members of the House’s Intelligence and Foreign Affairs Committees. It turns out they were accessing members’ computers without their knowledge, transferring files to remote servers, and stealing computer equipment — including hard drives that Awan & Co. smashed to bits of bytes before making tracks. [Snip]...

In the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, big banks paid tens of billions of dollars to settle state and federal fraud investigations, yet not one top bank executive was prosecuted. One investigator calls it the "immaculate corruption." But buried in recently unsealed documents is a revelation: major bank executives WERE referred to the Justice Department for possibly violating the law. A key whistleblower, Richard Bowen, is asking why none of them was charged. Richard Bowen knew where the figurative bodies were buried at banking giant Citigroup, once the largest company in the world. Richard Bowen: Over 60% of these...