Bank of America, Microsoft Denounce North Carolina’s Anti-LGBT Law, but Fund Politicians Who Passed It

BANK OF AMERICA, Lowe’s, Microsoft, and American Airlines all have two things in common: They have strongly criticized North Carolina’s new law that prevents local governments from prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, and money from their affiliated political action committees helped put the politicians who passed the law in office.

Bank of America CEO Now Making Millions Of Dollars More For No Reason

Last year was not a big year for raises in America. Collectively, Americans ended the year seeing their compensation rise just 2 percent.

But bank executives are different from you and me. Case in point: Bank of America chairman and CEO Brian Moynihan. On Friday in filing, the bank said it handed Moynihan a 23 percent raise, bringing his 2015 pay to $16 million at a time when antipathy to Wall Street has become a central theme of the U.S. presidential election .

Canada Has Dutch Disease, Bank Of America Declares

Is Canada’s oil sector harming the rest of the economy? According to Bank of America Merrill Lynch, the evidence points to yes.

In a new report, the bank has come out squarely in favour of the "Dutch Disease" theory — the notion that Canada's oil and gas boom has driven up the loonie to the point it's hurting other export-dependent parts of the economy.

Why Underwater Homeowners Won't Be Saved By Bank Of America's $17 Billion Deal

Since law enforcement officials first began pursuing banks for misdeeds related to the housing collapse, the stated goal has been the same. The objective, the Justice Department has said, is to hold banks accountable and to aid people most harmed by the financial crash that destroyed home prices and led to an epic wave of foreclosures.

Yet after more than two years of multi-billion dollar deals involving Wall Street's elite, including Thursday's $17 billion settlement with Bank of America, most distressed homeowners have no chance of obtaining the form of help considered the gold standard of borrower aid -- principal reduction, or the forgiveness of mortgage debt.

Bank Of America Reaches Record $17 Billion Settlement With U.S.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Bank of America has reached a record settlement of nearly $17 billion to resolve an investigation into its role in the sale of mortgage-backed securities before the 2008 financial crisis, officials directly familiar with the matter said Wednesday.

One of the officials, who spoke with The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the announcement isn't scheduled until Thursday at the earliest, said the bank will pay $9.65 billion in cash and provide consumer relief valued at $7 billion.

Bank Of America Wants People To Pay $5 For A Currently Free Service

Bank of America is offering you the chance to pay a fee for a service you may not know you already have.

The bank on Thursday launched a new kind of account, known as the "SafeBalance" account, which costs $4.95 a month and comes with no paper checks. Its major selling point is that it won't let you overdraw your account.

Bank Of America Liable For Fraud In Countrywide Mortgage Case: Jury

NEW YORK, Oct 23 (Reuters) - Bank of America Corp was found liable for fraud on Wednesday over defective mortgages sold by its Countrywide unit, a major win for the U.S. government in one of the few trials stemming from the financial crisis.

After a four-week trial, a federal jury in New York found the bank liable on one civil fraud charge. Countrywide originated shoddy home loans in a process called "Hustle" and sold them to government mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government said.

Bank Of America To Pay $2.18 Million In Racial Discrimination Case

Sept 23 (Reuters) - Bank of America Corp was ordered to pay $2.18 million to 1,147 black job applicants over racial discrimination in hiring that kept qualified candidates from getting jobs, the U.S. Department of Labor said on Monday.

The decision by Linda Chapman, an administrative law judge at the Labor Department, awards back pay and interest to former candidates for teller and entry-level administrative and clerical positions in the bank's hometown of Charlotte, North Carolina.

Bank of America intern's death puts banks' working culture in spotlight

Calls have been made for an overhaul of the long-hours culture among young staff working for banks in the City of London after the death of a "dedicated" German student who had won a sought-after placement at Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

Moritz Erhardt, 21, had won a place as a summer intern at the London city offices of the US bank and was nearing the end of his placement when he was found dead in the shower at his temporary accommodation in east London by ambulance services on 15 August.

Bank of America Schemes to Evade Settlement Rules and Pocket Cash

Documents leaked by a bank insider show the company sold servicing rights to more than half a million mortgages to loan servicing companies in order to make a quick profit and avoid settlement requirements, leaving homeowners in the lurch and with fewer protections to avoid foreclosure, writes Salon reporter David Dayen.

The documents show that in January 2013, Bank of America sold more than half a million mortgages worth $93 billion to the parent corporation of Green Tree Servicing, a non-bank loan servicer based in St. Paul, Minn. Such companies are “buying up servicing rights to millions of mortgages, gradually positioning themselves to become the biggest companies in the space,” Dayen reports.

Ex-Bank of America mortgage workers were 'told to lie'

Former Bank of America employees say in court documents that the bank routinely lies to customers about their mortgages, and denies their requests for modifications without even looking at the paperwork.

In sworn affidavits, four former employees, for example, describe policies in place at the bank that they say are designed to subvert the Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP), 2009 government-sponsored initiative that was designed to keep distressed homeowners above water during the depths of the housing crisis.

Bank of America Lied To Home Owners, Former Workers Allege

June 14 (Reuters) - Six former Bank of America Corp employees have alleged that the bank deliberately denied eligible home owners loan modifications and lied to them about the status of their mortgage payments and documents.

The bank allegedly used these tactics to shepherd homeowners into foreclosure, as well as in-house loan modifications. Both yielded the bank more profits than the government-sponsored Home Affordable Modification Program, according to documents recently filed as part of a lawsuit in Massachusetts federal court.

New York AG: Wells Fargo, BofA Violated National Foreclosure Settlement

New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said Monday he may sue Wells Fargo and Bank of America for allegedly violating the terms of last year’s multi-state mortgage settlement, despite questions over his authority to do so.

The agreement, reached by the Department of Justice, Department of Housing and Urban Development and 49 state attorneys general, called for the five largest mortgage companies to significantly revamp their procedures for dealing with distressed borrowers. It called on them to provide billions of dollars in aid to those borrowers and change the way they pursue home repossessions, in exchange for prosecutors dropping legal claims that the companies systematically violated borrowers’ rights when using faulty, so-called “robosigned” documents in foreclosure proceedings.

New York AG investigating BofA for mortgages: filing

(Reuters) - Bank of America Corp (BAC.N) said in a securities filing Thursday that the New York State Attorney General is investigating the bank over the purchase, securitization and underwriting of home loans and mortgage-backed securities.

The second-largest U.S. bank said it was cooperating with the investigation and other similar inquiries. A Bank of America spokesman declined to comment beyond the filing.

The bank is the third known to be targeted by the New York attorney general's office over how banks bundled mortgage loans into securities during the housing boom.

In its annual report filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Bank of America also said it could sustain up to $3.1 billion in legal losses beyond the amount it has reserved. That was up from a possible loss above legal reserves of $2.8 billion at the end of the third quarter.

Original Article
Source: reuters.com
Author: Reuters

Bank Of America, Fannie Mae Settlement: Bank To Pay $3.6 Billion To Settle Mortgage Claims

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Bank of America says it will spend more than $10 billion to settle mortgage claims resulting from the housing meltdown.

Under the deal announced Monday, the bank will pay $3.6 billion to Fannie Mae and buy back $6.75 billion in loans that the North Carolina-based bank and its Countrywide banking unit sold to the government agency from Jan. 1, 2000 through Dec. 31, 2008. That includes about 30,000 loans.

Bank Of America Mortgage Fraud: Feds Sue For Over $1 Billion Alleging Multi-Year Scheme

Federal prosecutors sued Bank of America for $1 billion on Wednesday, alleging that the bank's former Countrywide unit concocted a mortgage scheme it called the "Hustle" in order to sell thousands of fraudulent and otherwise defective mortgage loans to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

"In order to increase the speed at which it originated and sold loans ... Countrywide eliminated every single checkpoint on loan quality and compensated its employees solely based on the volume of loans originated," the lawsuit, filed in Manhattan federal district court, alleges.

JPMorgan, Bank Of America Probed Over Money-Laundering Allegations: New York Times

NEW YORK -- Regulators are investigating whether several major U.S. banks failed to monitor transactions properly, allowing criminals to launder money, according to a New York Times story. The newspaper cited officials who it said spoke on the condition of anonymity.

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the federal agency that oversees the biggest banks, is leading the money-laundering investigation, according to the Times. The report said the OCC could soon take action against JPMorgan Chase & Co., and that it is also investigating Bank of America Corp. Money laundering allows people to make money – often obtained illegally – appear like it came from another source.

Nasty Election Could Wreck The Economy, BofA Economist Warns

Like most Americans, you're probably thoroughly enjoying the nasty 2012 presidential election. We just can't get enough of the rape gaffes and the birth-certificate jokes, am I right?

But did you know that what you might consider frivolous electo-tainment could actually cause the entire U.S. economy to crash?

That is the warning in a new note by Bank of America economist Ethan Harris. He cautions that the ugly back-and-forth of this campaign could hurt the chances of Congress getting anything done about the "fiscal cliff," the $600 billion to $700 billion in tax increases and spending cuts set to take effect at the end of the year.

Bank Of America Settles With Bond Insurer Syncora For $375 Million Over Mortgage Fraud Claims

NEW YORK, July 17 (Reuters) - Bank of America Corp has agreed to pay $375 million to settle a case brought by bond insurer Syncora Guarantee over toxic mortgage-backed securities at the center of the 2008 financial crisis.

Syncora sued Bank of America in 2009 to recover losses on securities transactions based on home loans made by Countrywide Financial, which was bought by Bank of America in 2008. Syncora said it was duped into insuring the mortgage-backed securities and that Countrywide misrepresented the quality of the underlying mortgages.

Moody's Downgrades RBC, Among Several Major Banks

Ratings agency Moody's Investor Service Thursday downgraded the credit ratings of Canada's biggest bank, the Royal Bank of Canada, and 14 other banks with global operations.

Moody's cut RBC's long-term deposit rating by two notches to Aa3, saying it faces a high probability of needing government support because of the exposure of its global investment banking operations to a possible financial crisis.