Banking Blog

Interesting news from Bloomberg this week. Apparently, thanks to a Bloomberg Freedom of Information Act request and subsequent court fight, we now know how much the Federal Reserve lent banks between the beginning of the financial crisis and March 2009: $7.7 trillion. That’s trillion, with a “t.” What’s more, much of that money was lent

Looks like for all the controversy surrounding the Durbin Amendment, the total cost to merchants for processing debit card transactions has barely budged, and in some cases, actually risen. From Robin Sidel at The Wall Street Journal: In some cases, companies that process transactions on behalf of merchants are raising select fees while refusing to

It looks like members of the banking industry have a reason to be thankful. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., or FDIC, released its Quarterly Banking Profile recently, and the report includes plenty of good news for banks. Here’s a look at some of the key findings from the third quarter of 2011: Banks reported a profit

Credit unions aren’t just keeping up with banks. They seem to be outpacing them. In the 2011 California Bank & Credit Union Survey conducted by Prime Performance, the Sacramento-based credit union Golden 1 topped the charts in each of the four surveyed areas for a total overall customer experience score of 79 percent. Here’s a

While account holders adjust to the potential for new fees, the CEO at one of America’s biggest banks plans to make some adjustments of his own. In Business Week’s coverage of the Bank of America Merrill Lynch Banking and Financial Services Conference, BofA CEO Brian Moynihan discussed what he called the “new normal” of retail

It looks like alternative financial services for the unbanked are just too sweet a plumb for large national banks to ignore. Victoria Finkle of American Banker reports that they’re getting in on prepaid debit and check cashing: Banks have generally neglected low-income consumers, seeing little profit in trying to attract business from poor people who

How much do Americans spend on ATM fees each year? If you don’t know the answer, don’t worry. The vast majority of Americans don’t know, either, according to a new survey conducted by Ally Bank. In results released on Thursday, only 9 percent of more than 1,000 respondents answered correctly: $7 billion in 2010. More

Consumers who visit New York City during the holiday season might be surprised to see messages from a community bank trade group displayed on one of the jumbo screens in Times Square. It’s not a mistake or prank, however. Rather, the Independent Community Bankers of America, or ICBA, is taking its “Go Local Main Street”

Fresh off of months of bad news on banking regulations and a failed push for debit card fees, it looks like one revenue stream for banks remains intact: fees stemming from prepaid debit cards loaded with citizens’ unemployment benefits. From Janell Ross at the Huffington Post: Shawana Busby does not seem like the sort of

While many customers have already ditched big banks over the past few months, a new study shows that the nation’s financial giants have the potential to lose many more account holders throughout the next year. Management consulting firm, cg42, recently released the findings from its 2011 Retail Banking Vulnerability Study. The study surveyed more than