Word: bankses
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(2 of 2) The loss could potentially be much bigger. Current rules require banks to hold assets that trade on their books at the value they would fetch if a bank had to sell them to another investor. Loans typically don't trade, so the rule typically only applies to...
But if loans start trading more regularly because of the government's PPIP program, the banks would have submit those loans to so-called mark-to-market rules. That means the banks would have to take a write-down not just on the mortgage loans they sell, and get cash...
Earlier this month, though, the Financial Accounting Standard Board proposed a change to bookkeeping rules that would allow banks to characterize these loan sales as "distressed." That would allow banks to continue to claim they could get more for the loans they have yet to sell once this whole global...
"The change to mark-to-market rules will save banks a bundle," says Robert Willens, a corporate accounting expert. "Under the new rule, you can't mark your loans to market even if you wanted to."
At the very least, the PPIP plan probably means that the proposed accounting change, which could be enacted as soon as the next few weeks, to mark-to-market rules has to happen. But even with the rule change, banks are still probably going to need more money the government...