Financial Services Industry Archive

The British bank rescue plan is coming! The British bank rescue plan is coming! Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson doesn’t resemble Paul Revere, our country’s famous midnight rider, but he’s definitely signaling that a British-backed effort to resolve the banking and economic crisis is on the way to America. Following the Brits’ lead, Paulson now wants to put taxpayer...

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How important is leadership? Without it, you get the worse US financial crisis since the Great Depression. That’s the message from Harvard Business School professor Bill George, an expert in leadership. “This is not a crisis caused by the failure of complex financial instruments,” he writes in a recent Business Week op-ed. “This is a crisis caused by the failure of leaders on Wall...

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Largely unregulated derivatives known as “credit default swaps” are emerging as a primary villain in the mortgage-based financial meltdown. And SEC Chairman Christopher Cox has apparently just discovered them. At an SEC roundtable discussion earlier today, Cox singled out the swaps as dangerous instruments because they are  negotiated over-the-counter, they’re ripe for...

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UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s government will make £400bn available through a series of measures designed to salvage the fortunes of struggling commercial lenders. These include: Debt issued by banks will be guaranteed up to £250bn Up to £200bn from the Bank of England for short-term loans £25bn Treasury capital £25bn available in exchange for preference shares. Out of the eight...

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The Federal Reserve’s dramatic attempt to end the credit crunch was the topic of a recent radio report aired on the Marketplace business show, heard nationwide over many public radio stations. I was among those participating in this report by Washington Bureau Chief John Dimsdale, who explores whether the Fed is going too far by helping to ease the short-term cash needs of many major U.S....

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It’s going to take more than a mere interest rate cut to raise the banking industry’s comfort level. In reaction to an unprecedented interest-rate cut by six central banks throughout the world, major U.S.-based commercial banks today began lowering their prime lending rate, a benchmark that lenders typically charge their best customers, to 4.50 percent from 5.00 percent,...

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The sagging print news media industry is getting a bump from another badly troubled sector — financial services. This morning the WSJ’s front section had five full- or quarter-page advertisements trying to reassure investors that all is well. Prudential touted its 133 years of managing risk. Fidelity hawked the “right choices” for fixed income. Charles Schwab...

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If you thought the federal government’s $700 billion economic recovery plan was a huge gamble, then hang on. You ain’t seen nothing yet. In a dramatic move aimed at breaking the credit crunch, the Federal Reserve is essentially agreeing to lend short-term money to major corporations — a move that could also run hundreds of billions of dollars. While the Fed isn’t...

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The sharks are circling Europe — How does that goofy Disney song go? “It’s a small world, after all…” Well, today’s stock market plunge of nearly 800 points proves that point. It is a small world and we’re in the midst of a full-blown global economic crisis. Yes, the market rebounded, but the panic-fueled free fall was triggered by news that major...

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Last Tuesday, as much of the financial world was reeling from the failure of the $700 billion rescue plan in Congress, the U.S. Treasury Department quietly amended a tax regulation. Not many people seemed to notice. But Wells Fargo did. The tax regulation change, intended to promote bank mergers without federal bailouts, ended limitations on tax shelters used to cover losses of a firm that a...

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