Bank of America, JPMorgan and Citi face a possible foreclosure freeze in New Jersey. Other mortgage lenders and serv...

Checkmate | BofA, GMAC, Chase, Wells, Citi, Onewest Face N.J. Foreclosure Freeze
KABOOM! BofA, GMAC, Chase, Wells, Citi, Onewest Face N.J. Foreclosure Freeze This is coming in from multiple fronts... Chink in the Armor The State Supreme Court of NJ has ordered a halt to all foreclosure in the state of NJ. This is most excellent news for the reason you may not realize: NJ is owned by the Wall St. Bankers. Remember the movie Copland about a town in NJ owned and run by a bunch of NYC cops? Guess who used to be Governor of NJ? Corzine. Guess what his job was before he became G...

Bank Of America Lawsuits Highlight Broken, Ineffective Mortgage Modification Programs
Bank of America Lawsuits Highlight Broken, Ineffective Mortgage Modification Programs The Attorneys General of Nevada and Arizona last week slapped Bank of America with lawsuits alleging widespread Fraud occurrs in the bank’s mortgage modification programs. BofA, the nation’s biggest bank, has consistently lagged behind the other big mortgage servicers in successfully modifying mortgages for troubled borrowers. Andrew Jakabovics and I also caught the bank violating the contract it...

New Jersey warns foreclosure fiends
New Jersey has fired a shot across the Banking Industry's bow. The state's Supreme Court ordered the biggest lenders to prove they are acting lawfully in processing Foreclosures. While that only seems like common sense, Supreme Court Chief Justice Stuart Rabner told the Wall Street Journal he believes this is the first case in which the state courts have placed that particular ball where it belongs, in the Bankers' court. Time for a Mortgage rule makeover? "It's important that the judiciary ens...

Crony journalism at the NewsHour
JIM LEHRER: In the worst-case scenario, the panel says courts could block Foreclosures. Banks would be left holding bad Mortgage loans that cost them billions of dollars. That in turn would deepen disruption in the Housing Market. But, in the best case, the Oversight Panel acknowledges, concerns about Mortgage documents may prove to be overblown, a view embraced by the financial industry. This afternoon, executives from two major lenders, J.P. Morgan Chase and Bank of America, appeared before t...

Mortgage lenders ordered to appear in NJ court - National Business - MiamiHerald.com
Newark, N.J. -- Six lenders who have combined to file nearly 30,000 Foreclosure actions in New Jersey this year face the possible suspension of their operations next month under a court order announced Monday by state Supreme Court Chief Justice Stuart Rabner. The action follows a report submitted to the Supreme Court that, citing depositions and court filings in other states, paints a picture of systemic abuses in the filing of foreclosures that include so-called "robo-signing," in which emp...

Mortgage lenders ordered to appear in NJ court
NEWARK, N.J. (AP) - Six lenders who have combined to file nearly 30,000 Foreclosure actions in New Jersey this year face the possible suspension of their operations next month under a court order announced Monday by state Supreme Court Chief Justice Stuart Rabner. The action follows a report submitted to the Supreme Court that, citing depositions and court filings in other states, paints a picture of systemic abuses in the filing of foreclosures that include so-called "robo-signing," in which e...

Guest Post: Assange Confirms that Bank of America Is the Target of Bank Leak
→ Washington’s Blog There has been widespread speculation that Wikileaks would target Bank of America. This has now been confirmed. Specifically, Agence Press France is reporting: Assange also confirmed that Wikileaks was holding a vast amount of material about Bank of America which it intends to release early next year. ...

State AGs Sue Bank of America
Mon Dec. 20, 2010 7:04 AM PST As officials from all 50 states investigate the causes of the recent "Foreclosure-gate" fiasco, two attorneys general have decided to go after Wall Street on their own. On Friday, Arizona and Nevada's attorneys general slapped Bank of America and its Mortgage servicing subsidiary with a blistering Lawsuit (PDF). The states say the lender made "false assurances" about modifying Homeowners' mortgages while foreclosing on them at the same time and ...

Regulators target bankers' cash compensation: report
(Reuters) - U.S. Regulators may force big financial firms to award half or more of their executive pay in the form of stock or other deferred compensation instead of cash, the Wall Street Journal said, citing people familiar with the situation. The... Scenarios: Where is U.S. Financial Regulation headed into 2011? n">(Reuters) - U.S. Regulators may force big financial firms to award half or more of their executive pay in the form of stock or other deferred compensation instead of cash, the Wall...

UPDATE 3-Goldman trader Sze raising $1 bln-plus HK hedge fund
Thu Dec 16, 2010 9:16am EST * Goldman trader plans team of up to 30 for HK-based fund * Launch could be biggest since the Credit Crisis * Goldman winding down prop desk in light of Volcker Rule * Sze discouraged from London by tax, Regulation - source (Releads, adds detail, background) By Laurence Fletcher and Kevin Lim LONDON/Singapore, Dec 16 (Reuters) - Goldman Sachs (GS.N) star trader Morgan Sze's plans to raise over $1 billion for an Asia Hedge Fund could be a sign of things to come a...

JPMorgan Dominates in Investment Banking Top Line
When it comes to Investment Banking, 2010 belongs to JPMorgan Chase, according to the results of a Dealogic study reported by The Wall Street Journal. In its gold-medal performance, JPMorgan raked in $5.2 billion this year. Bank of America came in second with $4.6 billion, followed by Goldman Sachs with $4 billion. And wherever there are winners, there are inevitably some losers. From The Journal: Among the biggest losers, Royal Bank of Scotland Group PLC's investment-banking revenue fell 23%,...

Regulators target bankers' cash compensation: report
Mon Dec 20, 2010 11:59pm EST n">(Reuters) - U.S. Regulators may force big financial firms to award half or more of their executive pay in the form of stock or other deferred compensation instead of cash, the Wall Street Journal said, citing people familiar with the situation. The move, which could affect big Wall Street firms such as Bank of America Corp, JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, is aimed at curbing excessive risk taking behavior that contributed to the financial cris...

Regulators target bankers' cash compensation: report
Mon Dec 20, 2010 11:59pm EST n">(Reuters) - U.S. Regulators may force big financial firms to award half or more of their executive pay in the form of stock or other deferred compensation instead of cash, the Wall Street Journal said, citing people familiar with the situation. The move, which could affect big Wall Street firms such as Bank of America Corp, JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, is aimed at curbing excessive risk taking behavior that contributed to the financial cris...

Wall Street Pay Will Be Unequal as Some Receiving No Bonus
Bonus season is fast approaching on Wall Street, but this year the talk does not center just on multimillion-dollar paydays. It’s about a new club that no one wants to join: the Zeros. Drawn from a broad swath of back-office employees and middle-level traders, Bankers and brokers, the Zeros, as they have come to be called, are facing a once-unthinkable prospect: an annual Bonus of ... nothing. “It’s going to a cause a lot of panic on Wall Street,” said Richard Stein of ...

Tim Chen: The Dangers of no Preset Spending Limit Cards
While most people understand that using all of their available credit can be detrimental, they don't understand why it affects their Credit Score. It can be summed up in two words: Credit Utilization. Credit utilization is the amount of credit that a consumer has consumed versus the amount of credit that consumer has available. It is this ratio that FICO uses as part of the formula for a consumer's "amounts owed" section. This section makes up 30% of a person's FICO score. As FICO is the larg...

Bank of America, UBS Assets Seized in Italy Swap Probe
Dec. 21 (Bloomberg) -- Italy’s finance police seized 22 million Euros ($29 million) from six lenders including Bank of America Corp., alleging they defrauded five central Italian municipalities in a series of Derivatives contracts. Police said they took 15 million Euros from Bank of America and 1.7 million Euros each from Deutsche Bank AG and UBS AG, according to a statement. The rest was seized from Natixis SA, Dexia Crediop SpA and Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena SpA. The amount represen...

Bank of America cuts ties with WikiLeaks
CHARLOTTE, N.C. - Bank of America says it will no longer process transactions for the website Wikileaks, following similar actions by several other Financial Institutions. The bank said in a statement that it believes that site "may be engaged in activities that are, among other things, inconsistent with our internal policies for processing payments." It joins financial institutions including MasterCard and PayPal that have stopped handling payments for the site. Reached by phone, Bank of Amer...

Bank of America Cuts Off WikiLeaks
Julian Assange is not next in line. Banking behemoth Bank of America, the company that's assembled a "legal SWAT Team" in anticipation of a supposed Wikileaks bombshell coming its way next year next year, announced over the weekend that it's suspending payments to the document-distributing site. The New York Times reports: "Bank of America joins in the actions previously announced by MasterCard, PayPal, Visa Europe and others and will not process transactions of any type that we have reason to ...

Bank Of America's Latest Decoupling Strawman: Go Long Women
, a certain segment of women are already not only taking advantage of Banker generosity (whose proximal position to 0.25% discount rates must be milked by all), but translating this into Economic Growth: recently Rick's Cabaret announced it would be expanding its locations substantially in the new year, following unmet demand for its "services." In that regard, we couldn't agree more with BofA's analysis. ...

Bank of America Draws the Line
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Bank of America Corp. has joined several other Financial Institutions in refusing to handle payments for Wikileaks… “This decision is based upon our reasonable belief that WikiLeaks may be engaged in activities that are, among other things, inconsistent with our internal policies for processing payments,” the bank said.Curious as to just how rigorous the Bank of America’s “internal policies” might be, I turned to Google. Similarly, traffickers...

Bank of America Suspends Payments From WikiLeaks
In a sign of the increasing tensions between Wikileaks and the corporate world, Bank of America has said it will no longer help process payments for the organization, which released a huge cache of secret State Department cables in late November and has threatened to “take down” a major United States bank with another data dump. “Bank of America joins in the actions previously announced by MasterCard, PayPal, Visa Europe and others and will not process transactions of any type...

NJ Top Court May Block Foreclosures
TRENTON, N.J. (CBS 2) — New Jersey’s highest court was threatening to block six major lenders, suspected of irregularities, from foreclosing on most Homeowners. Those lenders, which include Wells Fargo, JPMorgan Chase and Citibank, will have to appear in court next month and defend their Foreclosure practices. The Chief Justice of New Jersey’s Supreme Court said the court has become increasingly concerned about the accuracy and reliability of documents submitted to the office o...

22 Foreclosure Activists Arrested at Chase Bank in Downtown Los Angeles
In addition to the courts, the state Attorneys General and investors wanting to put back soured Mortgages on them, the banks have had to increasingly contend with direct action at their worksites. Thursday in downtown Los Angeles, 22 Activists, including the head of SEIU Local 721 and members of ACCE (the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment), were arrested outside a Chase bank for protesting the Foreclosure crisis. The activists set up a “living room” in front of the...

Open Letter to Bank Regulators on Mortgage Securitization and Servicing Practices
Today, a letter urging fundamental changes in the Mortgage securitization markets, signed by 50 individuals with expertise in this arena, was sent to the Chairmen of the FDIC, the Fed, and the SEC, and the Secretary of the Treasury and the Comptroller of the Currency. Despite widespread evidence of failings, abuses, and outright Fraud in the securitization process, reform measures have been halting at best. The FDIC has proposed far-reaching and well thought out measures in the face of consid...

San Francisco Fed Offers Sympathy to Pre-Crisis Mortgage Lenders
By Michael S. Derby Mortgage lenders may deserve more sympathy for their performance in the years leading up to the Financial Crisis than they now get credit for, new research from the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco argues. Bank Economist John Krainer , with Visiting Scholar Stephen LeRoy , argue in a note Monday that even though the market ended up blowing up, mortgage lenders had rationally priced in what was understood about Housing Market risk at the time they wrote the loans. That&#...