Archives for April 2014

Oops! My Calculator was Broken – Red Faces for both Bank of America and the Fed

One “tiny little error” resulted in red faces at both Bank of America (BAC) and the Federal Reserve when bank officials disclosed they had incorrectly calculated capital levels required for the annual stress tests.  The Fed apparently did not notice the error until Bank of America notified them. This would all be very funny except […]

Will Banks Get Burned on Huge Holdings of U.S. Treasuries?

With loan demand still tepid after over five years of unprecedented monetary stimulus by the Federal Reserve, banks need to invest trillions of dollars of deposits that they can’t lend out. Just as individual savers have been forced to take on more risk and go further out on the yield curve, banks have been forced […]

Counterfeit Cashier’s Checks Are Becoming a Major Problem

You just sold your car to what appeared to be a regular guy.  After some back and forth negotiations the buyer agreed to accept what you considered a fair price.  You sign over the title to the buyer, give him the keys, and the buyer gives you an official cashier’s check for the purchase price […]

FDIC Issues 40 Enforcement Actions

The FDIC issued a list of 40 enforcement actions taken against banks and individuals during March 2014.  The enforcement actions include the following: 4 consent orders 1 prompt corrective action directive 9 section 19 orders 14 orders terminating consent orders and cease and desist orders 1 order terminating a prompt corrective action 2 civil money […]

Allendale County Bank, Fairfax, SC, Closed by Regulators, Sixth Bank Failure of 2014

South Carolina state regulators closed Allendale County Bank, Fairfax, SC, and appointed the FDIC as receiver.  In order to protect depositors the FDIC sold the failed bank to Palmetto State Bank, Hampton, South Carolina, which will assume all deposits of failed Allendale County Bank. According to the FDIC, selling a failed bank to another bank […]

Most Americans Still Don’t Trust Banks and Here’s Why

Six years after the near melt down of the United States banking industry in 2008, more than half of all Americans still lack confidence in both the banking system and the government. Interestingly the United States with some of the biggest banking institutions in the world and the implicit backing of the United States Treasury […]

Bank ATMs Are Easy Target for Criminals

As if banks didn’t have enough problems to worry about, a recent government report reveals that theft from ATM machine was become a widespread problem. The alarm bell on ATM fraud was sounded by an organization that most Americans have never heard of – the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council (FFIEC) – which acts as […]