Counterfeit checks issue for big community bank
Posted on November 9, 2009 at 10:44 amFor the second time in two months, a local bank has alerted the FDIC that fake checks bearing its name are making the rounds. This time around, the counterfeit cashier’s checks are being presented in the name of First Farmers and Merchants Bank, the $940 million institution based in Columbia with 19 offices in seven counties on the south side of the Nashville MSA.
SEE ALSO: Lebanon Bank warns of fake checks
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Some advice from your friendly neighborhood bank regulator
Posted on October 16, 2009 at 7:23 am
Sheila Bair and her team are ready to help banks tackle the looming CRE crunch.
Prudent loan workouts are often in the best interest of financial institutions and borrowers, particularly during difficult economic circumstances and constrained credit availability. This guidance reflects that reality, and supports prudent and pragmatic credit and business decision-making within the framework of financial accuracy, transparency, and timely loss recognition.
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FDIC hits up industry for three years of payments
Posted on September 29, 2009 at 1:28 pm
Rather than impose another special one-time assessment to replenish its coffers, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. is proposing that banks pay their dues for 2010, 2001 and 2012 before the end of this year. It’ll hurt, but not as much as the alternative.
“It’s certainly a better solution than taking a large chunk of money out of banks’ income and capital,” James Chessen, chief economist at the American Bankers Association, said after the meeting.
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Oh. The. Irony.
Posted on September 22, 2009 at 10:49 amStephen Labaton at The New York Times says regulators are seriously considering turning to bank loans as a means of replenishing the FDIC’s reserve fund.
“Borrowing from healthy banks, instead of the Treasury, has the advantage of keeping this in the family,” said Karen M. Thomas, executive vice president of government relations at the Independent Community Bankers of America, a trade group representing about 5,000 banks. “It is much better for perceptions than having the fund borrow from somewhere else.”
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Lebanon bank warns of fake checks
Posted on September 18, 2009 at 2:46 pm
Via the FDIC, First Freedom Bank in Lebanon says someone is writing counterfeit cashier’s checks that bear its name.
The counterfeit items display the routing number 064109086, which is assigned to First Freedom Bank. A security feature statement is embedded in a darkened top border and along the bottom border between two padlocks. The words “CASHIER’S CHECK” appear slightly off center at the top of the items.
Three-year-old First Freedom has about $220 million in assets and lost $1.1 million in the first half of this year.
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Fifth Third wants to buy troubled banks
Posted on September 16, 2009 at 2:59 pmKevin Kabat, CEO of the Nashville area’s sixth-largest bank, told an investor conference in New York his team is scouting for potential acquisitions of sinking banks, deals that would be backed by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.
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Levin say no to another FDIC levy
Posted on at 7:35 am
Michigan Sen. Carl Levin is urging the FDIC to tap the line of credit it has with the Treasury to replenish its coffers rather than hit up community banks with another “special assessment.”
SEE ALSO: Our recent story on local bankers’ concern about FDIC fees
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The RTC to rise again?
Posted on September 9, 2009 at 8:11 am
Investment Dealers’ Digest says banking regulators are seriously considering creating a bad-asset management entity modeled on the Resolution Trust Corp. from 20 years ago.
“They are very, very keen to ensure it does not repeat itself,” says the industry participant who attended meetings with the FDIC about the RTC. “My guess is they’ll have the spirit of the PPIP investment plan where the investors share both upside and downside with the U.S. government.”
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Problem bank list still growing
Posted on August 27, 2009 at 2:51 pmThe FDIC’s quarterly banking sector update shows that the number of banks in trouble jumped by a third to more than 400. Another fun stat: Nearly a third of all U.S. lenders lost money during the quarter.
SEE ALSO: NPR’s piece on bank regulators’ increasing focus on small banks and their rising comfort level with letting them fail.
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The foreign bankers are coming
Posted on August 24, 2009 at 7:56 am
The sale of Texas-based Guaranty Bank to Spanish giant BBVA could open the door for other overseas banking players to wade deeper into the U.S. banking sector — especially if domestic lenders continue to get hit by FDIC fees that one analyst says could eat up a quarter of 2010 operating profits.
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Another FDIC fee as soon as this month?
Posted on August 20, 2009 at 1:40 pm
After the massive failure of Colonial Bancgroup, the regulator may soon hit up banks around the country for another “special assessment” to boost its deposit reserve fund. See our recent story on this topic here.
On a related note, the FDIC may next week ease restrictions on private-equity investors who want to buy into failed or failing banks.
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FDIC again mulling bad-bank model
Posted on August 18, 2009 at 3:12 pm
It seems likes ages ago that Citigroup split into two, a move that some at the time saw as the way to go for many other financial companies. Now Colin Barr at Fortune says that approach is coming into vogue again with some regulators.
Though the FDIC says it’s having success in finding buyers for much of these assets, it is also trying to find ways to move inventory at better prices. In one program, the agency will provide financing to acquirers of troubled loans.
“There has been little activity in sales of whole loans,” said Hal Reichwald, a lawyer at Manatt Phelps & Phillips in Los Angeles who represents investors. “The danger is you could end up with a bottleneck in the distressed asset markets.”
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BB&T said to be Colonial buyer
Posted on August 14, 2009 at 1:47 pm
Bloomberg reports that Alabama’s floundering Colonial BancGroup is about to be snapped up by regional powerhouse BB&T (Ticker: BBT). With $26 billion in assets, Colonial’s expansion into Florida, Nevada and elsewhere may well turn out to be a case study in how banks got in over their heads during the housing boom.
Investors like the look of the deal, which — of course — comes with a loss-sharing guarantee from the FDIC.
BB&T may gain $830 million, or $1.28 per share, in the third quarter from the acquisition, analyst Chris Marinac of FIG Partners LLC in Atlanta said in a report today that assumes the FDIC will absorb 80 percent of Colonial’s loan losses. BB&T is likely to mark down Colonial’s loans by 12.5 percent to account for likely losses, Marinac said.
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Corker wants more powerful FDIC
Posted on July 31, 2009 at 6:34 amJosh Flory passes on word of legislation co-written by Bob Corker that would give the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. power to shut down bank holding companies.
I think it’s important to create this mechanism and provide clarity so that as we approach broader regulatory reform we don’t have the moral hazard of a ‘too big to fail’ mentality.
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Bair pushes for ‘comprehensive resolution regime’
Posted on July 23, 2009 at 7:44 amBloomberg News says FDIC Chairman Sheila Bair will today tell lawmakers they should collect cash from the country’s large banks for a fund that would manage the bailouts of failed financial companies. Oh yeah, and throw the bums out.
“In contrast to the current situation, this new regime would not focus on propping up the current firm and its management,” Bair said. “Without a new comprehensive resolution regime, we will be forced to repeat the costly, ad hoc responses of the last year.”
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