Credit Services and Products

> Banks Cut Off Loans to Art Buyers ... April 24/08
The boom in the art market has been fueled in part by easy credit from private banks. In recent years, wealthy U.S. art collectors borrowed an estimated $2 billion to $3 billion from private banks and other financial-services companies to build their collections. The loans are often backed wholly or partially by the art itself... cont...

> Canada Says Credit Shortages to Persist Until 2010 ... April 24/08
The Bank of Canada predicted tightness in credit markets until 2010, and said the shortages will combine with a slump in exports to the U.S. to cause the slowest economic growth in 16 years... cont...

> How the mortgage industry nurtured deceit ... April 24/08
Here's the narrative we've heard about the mortgage meltdown: miscalculation and unfounded optimism, clueless investors, cash-strapped home buyers clobbered by rate resets. But there's one piece of the mortgage-meltdown tale that virtually every article or television program dances around without ever quite confronting. It's the story of the liar's loan.... cont...

> Credit Suisse bank posts $2.1 billion loss ... April 24/08
Credit Suisse Group on Thursday posted a $2.1 billion loss for the first quarter as the global effects of the U.S. subprime mortgage crisis continued to spread. Switzerland's second-largest bank said it also had net write-downs of 5.3 billion francs ($5.3 billion) for big buyout loans and mortgage securities. It was the first time the bank, Switzerland's second largest, had posted a loss in the subprime crisis... cont...

> Further US Interest Rate Cuts Will Do Far More Harm than Good ... April 23/08
The Federal Reserve has played a major role in America's economic decline. Greenspan's “weak dollar” policy pushed trillions of dollars of credit into the hands of people who had no realistic prospect of paying it back. Now the banks are buried beneath a mountain of bad investments and foreclosures are at record highs. (In California 65,000 homes are now in some stage of foreclosure while the total number of homes sold in February—new and used---was a mere 20,513) Michael S. Rozeff explains the current downturn in his article “The Subprime Crisis and Government Failure”... cont...

> Predatory lending or consumers' fault? ... April 23/08
Recent data reveals that the current housing crisis was caused by predatory lending practices as well as mortgage fraud. The dilemma in applying a fix is that a broad bailout not only will help those who were truly victimized by rapacious lending institutions but also those who knowingly took risks with such acts as falsifying financial records or the abuse of stated income loans... cont...

> When ‘easy payments’ aren’t easy ... April 23/08
Today, Americans are born into a world dominated by debt, and the majority has no concept that there actually was a time when excessive home mortgages, automobile loans, school loans and credit cards did not exist. The pitch is: “Easy monthly payments!” Yes, but “easy” for whom... cont...

> Lending Tree Says Rogue Employees Leaked Customer Info ... April 23/08
Lending Tree sent out an email this week letting customers know that its customer information, including addresses and social security numbers, was accessed by outside parties. Lending Tree doesn't think any fraud or ID theft was involved—instead, several rogue employees leaked passwords to rival mortgage lenders so that they could advertise their own loans to applicants.... cont...

> BofA to stop offering risky mortgages ... April 23/08
Bank of America Corp. said Tuesday that it planned to stop offering some riskier mortgage loans after it finishes buying Countrywide Financial Corp., the largest U.S. mortgage lender. The changes affect home loans once common at Countrywide, which agreed in January to a $4-billion takeover by the nation's second-largest bank after borrower defaults soared and credit markets tightened... cont...

> Payday loan clients to share $3M settlement ... April 22/08
Payday loan clients of The Cash Store Inc. and Instaloans stand to share in a $3 million settlement of a class-action lawsuit. Lawyer David Thompson of Scarfone Hawkins LLP of Hamilton said today he has negotiated the settlement, subject to court approval. The proposed deal calls for half of the money to be paid in cash and half in vouchers to borrowers outside of British Columbia and Alberta... cont...

> Fed auctions another $50 billion to banks ... April 22/08
Battling to relieve stressed credit markets, the Federal Reserve has provided a total of $360 billion in short-term loans to squeezed banks since December to help them overcome credit problems. The central bank on Tuesday announced the results of its most recent auction … the 10th since the program started in December, where commercial banks bid to get a slice of another $50 billion in the short-term loans... cont...

> Credit Crisis Changing American consumers ... April 22/08
The formerly unsinkable American consumer is taking on water, hit by high prices for food and energy, rising unemployment and fewer assets to sell or refinance. And with the household sector accounting for about three-quarters of the U.S. gross domestic product, an end to American shoppers' remarkable run will have a big and self-reinforcing effect... cont...

> VisionBank sets sights on problem mortgages ... April 21/08
Mark Saliterman's bank isn't quite 3-years old and hasn't turned a profit, but the 58-year-old entrepreneur still thinks it can help fund troubled Twin Cities homeowners out of foreclosure. VisionBank of St. Louis Park, which Saliterman started in 2005, is rolling out a program to help homeowners who are in or are facing foreclosure keep their homes... cont...

> Bank of America 1Q profits fall 77% ... April 21/08
Bank of America Corp. (NYSE: BAC) today posted a first-quarter profit of $1.21 billion, a 77-percent decline from the year-ago period’s $5.26 billion, on revenue that fell 6 percent to $17.3 billion. Earnings per diluted share shrank to 23 cents from the 2007 first quarter’s $1.16... cont...

> Credit crisis squeezing out students ... April 21/08
The credit crunch is squeezing virtually every part of the consumer world, including one group that can ill afford a shortage of funds: college students. As families are applying for college financial aid or are receiving financial aid packages from schools, they face a landscape of uncertainty and more effort to find funds to pay for their children’s education... cont...

> Students Scramble To Get Loans Amid Credit Crunch ... April 18/08
Across the country, students and families are scrambling to pay college tuitions after several large corporate lenders pulled out of the student loan business this week. More big corporate lenders are pulling out of the student loan industry. The move puts added stress on colleges like Lasell, where tuition, room and board make up 86 percent of the budget. Four out of five students at Lasell depend on financial aid... cont...

> South Florida banks' problem loans rise ... April 18/08
South Florida-based banks are showing signs of economic stress, with the number of problem loans on their books climbing dramatically from December 2006 to December 2007, a new report shows. The increase in past-due loans is a reflection of not only the worsening housing market but also challenges from the economic slowdown as even some solid companies are hard-pressed to keep loan payments up to date, banking analysts say... cont...

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