Financial recovery hinges on trust

President Obama’s speech on Wall Street last week signals that a year after one of the worst financial panics in U.S. history, financial reform is on its way. Though reform will not prevent all future crises, it will make them less frequent and less likely to pose the same lethal threat to the economy.

That reform is necessary almost goes without saying. The financial system issued trillions of dollars in bad loans over the last decade – loans unlikely to be repaid under even the best of circumstances – creating the fodder for the subsequent financial panic and Great Recession. Its legal merits aside, the recent Securities and Exchange Commission suit against Goldman Sachs Group Inc. brings into sharp relief all that we feared about the financial system: that it has become opaque, conflicted, and dysfunctional. Read more.

 

Large bank customers more dissatisfied

Some of the largest U.S. banks were ranked very low for retail customer satisfaction, a marketing research company said on Thursday.

The study implies that as some of the biggest banks get bigger, customers may not be happy. Read more.

 

Wall Street likely to give Obama chilly reception

As President Obama heads to New York City on Thursday to press for a major overhaul of financial rules, he faces stiff opposition by Wall Street to the toughest proposed regulatory crackdown since the Great Depression.

A Senate committee on Wednesday approved the final piece of the legislation: strict new oversight of the murky and unregulated market for complex financial derivatives. It is one of three significant provisions that rile Wall Street the most. Read more.

 

Senate tax-writer cautious on bank tax

President Barack Obama’s plan to tax financial institutions to recoup funds spent during the government’s bailout of financial firms received tepid enthusiasm from the top tax writer in the U.S. Senate.

Senator Max Baucus, the conservative-leaning Democrat who heads the Senate Finance Committee said on Tuesday he will hold a series of hearings to examine the plan. Read more.

 

Obama to press for financial overhaul in New York

President Barack Obama will push for his plan to tighten Wall Street regulations in New York on Thursday, the White House said on Monday, as he attempts to overcome solid Republican opposition.

The battle over a financial regulatory overhaul represented a new election-year fault line in Washington after the bruising healthcare debate, and poses a new challenge for Obama as he seeks to gain passage of one of his key domestic priorities. Read more.