Word: banke
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...biggest problem with letting banks go over their grades is that, if they can argue with the government in private, they can take those arguments public. Banks told that they must raise capital can debate the judgment and claim that the entire program is flawed. That may cause shareholders and Wall St. analysts to question the value of the entire process and whether it creates an accurate gauge of bank balance sheets and future prospects...
Charge cards have been around since the 1920s, when service stations, department stores and hotel chains began offering them to automobile-loving consumers who didn't want to trek back to their hometown bank to get cash. But it wasn't until the postwar boom of the 1950s that credit cards really caught on. In 1950, Diners Club issued its first card--made of cardboard--for use in 27 restaurants in New York City. A year later, nearly 20,000 Americans carried it in their wallet. American Express, which had specialized in traveler's checks, created its card...
Mere months after the financial system almost collapsed, banks are making money again. One after the other, they've reported big profits for the first quarter: $4.2 billion at Bank of America, $3 billion at Wells Fargo, $2.4 billion at JPMorgan Chase, $1.8 billion at Goldman Sachs, even $1.6 billion at Citigroup - which lost $18.7 billion...
...past includes bad mortgage loans, collateralized debt obligations and all manner of other lunkheaded lending decisions. It was also characterized by a 15-year decline in the net interest margin, a core measure of bank profitability that is the difference between what banks pay to borrow and what they charge to lend. The net interest margin is partly a product of interest rates: banks borrow short term and lend long term, so when long-term interest rates drop below short-term rates (as happened three times in the past 15 years), margins are squeezed. But another big factor has been...
...warehouses and shopping malls - are structured as 5-to-10-year loans. After that, the loan is normally refinanced. But the recession has eroded the fundamentals of even good refinancing candidates. Property values have plummeted, with sale prices down as much as 45% from the peak in 2007, Deutsche Bank reports. And vacancies are up - expected by year's end to reach 13.5% for retail and 17% for office buildings - cutting potential income that commercial properties need to make their mortgage payments. Some areas will be even worse. Vacancy rates in midtown Manhattan, already at 12.7%, are expected to reach...