Bankers: Do not Pass GO, Do Not Collect millions and Go Directly to Jail!

A new banking report is published today in the UK.

There are jobs that nobody wants to do really, aren’t there? As your kids are growing up, you hope they don’t ask you one day to come and sit down as they have something serious to talk to you about. Dread! You know what’s coming: “Hey, mom, dad, I’m…I’m going to be a…a banker!”. Then, your whole life falls apart. It’s like being on a par with gutting social-unacceptable jobs like debt-collector and bailiff, isn’t it? The money might be there, but the morals aren’t?

Well, George Osborne, Chancellor of the Exchequer of the UK, has all eyes focused on him with the idea of the century, it seems. A banking commission headed by Conservative MP, Andrew Tyrie has made 80 recommendations to make the banking sector the place you want your kids to work in when they grow up. Morals will change and the banking will be a good job to have!

George Osborne is giving the Mansion-House (residence of the Lord Mayor of London) speech to the city tonight, an annual speech in which the Chancellor of the Exchequer traditionally gives his impression of the state of the British economy. It seems rather unlikely that he will announce some of the recommendations to the bankers that will be seated at the tables in front of him, however. Not unless he wants them to choke on the spicy ingredients that he have been concocted. These include making bankers wait up to ten years to receive bonuses and going to prison. Heard it all before? Thought it? Dreamt of it? The Report did it.

George Osborne, Mansion House Speech

The report is a hefty two-volume reader’s digest of what to do and what not to do in the banking system, entitled “Changing Banking for Good”. Snazzy little tittle that can be read in two different ways as well. Well done Mr. Tyrie. Only a few pages into the report it states that past regulations and supervisory controls had:

• “little realistic prospect of effective enforcement action, even in many of the most flagrant cases of failure”.

It goes on to state that:

• “remuneration has incentivised misconduct and excessive risk-taking, reinforcing a culture where poor standards were often considered normal”.

To take out the excessive risk-taking from the lives of bankers in the workplace, the report puts forward the suggestion not only that the bankers should receive the bonuses after a period that could last up to ten years (now that’s time to forget what you have actually done to get the bonus, isn’t it?) but also that the remuneration be in bail-bonds. It also suggests that for wider cases of misconduct remuneration should be cancelled and that if the taxpayer has to foot the bill, then they should definitely not be made. We know from a recent report from the Chartered Institute of Personal Development also that the majority of bankers are in agreement. They think that they are paid excessive amounts and sometimes they don’t know why they get all the money they do. So, if we all agree, let’s cut the bonuses and improve regulation. What are we waiting for?

Bankers: Bonuses

The report states that banks have failed the UK in ‘many respects’. £133 billion have had to be injected in bail-outs, amounting to £2, 000 per every person in the UK today. But, it seems that it is also the shareholders that have been let down too. They have had ‘poor long-term returns’.

Excessive risks that were taken in the period leading up to the financial crisis were not down to miscalculation of mathematical equations that boiled down to the bankers getting their sums wrong, but to the fact that the banks were and still are too big to fail. They are able to take greater risks because they are too complex and too enormous. We can’t let them fail and that they know only too well. It’s all very well saying ‘yes, let them fail and then they will see’. But, what will the average person be eating then? Bread and water will be more than just dietary supplements, they will become the staples. Banks today have access to cheaper credit. Their success is determined not so much by the careful and planned placing of financial equity, but the guarantee that lies steadfastly behind them.

The report clearly states that bankers should not flippantly refuse to accept that public anger at high salaries is purely jealousy-driven or petty ignorance. “Rewards have been paid for failure”. Bonuses may have fallen, although the report points out that this has been off-set by fixed-pay rises.

It has also been suggested that there needs to be greater equality in terms of employing women. Women take fewer risks traditionally on the trading floor and so the report asks for employment policy to be changed in banks.

Senior bankers have also come in for a belting from the report, accused of wearing blindfolds as to their responsibility. They are accused of being so far removed from the misconduct that they have ended up being admonished of all responsibility. The report suggests that a prison sentence would certainly make senior officials think about what is being done. The report states that it would “give pause for thought to the senior officers of UK banks”. However, to what extent would senior officials of any bank really consider their potential criminal liability? It also raises the question as to what extent it would be possible to actually see a conviction and criminal liability recognized in a court of law?  Hard to prove.

The reports can be found here.  Enjoy! If anything actually gets done. Previous suggestions were already ignored by the British government with regard to changes in the banking sector and the report states that it is “disappointed” that this has happened. Aren’t we all?

However, clearly the report states quite a few home truths; things that the average citizen has been feeling and voicing for many a year now. But, until now that has been largely left just as words from angry and jealous members of the public that also want to strike it rich and get paid for doing wrong. Now though, how long will the suggestions that have been made be ignored and how long will the Chancellor of the Exchequer be able to turn a deaf ear to what is being said? The report comes at a timely moment; Mr. Osborne looks like he may still have time to rectify his speech for tonight’s dinner!

The report states “An important lesson of history is that bankers, regulators and politicians alike repeatedly fail to learn the lessons of history”. This time it is (apparently) different. Bankers and everyone else have learned the lessons. Have they?

What do you think? Are bankers going to repeat history or have they learned from their mistakes?

http://www.zerohedge.com/contributed/2013-06-19/bankers-do-not-pass-go-do-not-collect-millions-and-go-directly-jail

B of A Gave $500 Bonuses to Foreclose on Clients: Lawsuit

Bank of America (BAC) rewarded staff with cash bonuses and gift cards for meeting quotas tied to sending distressed homeowners into foreclosure, former employees said in court documents.

Mortgage workers falsified records and were told to delay U.S. loan-assistance applications by requesting paperwork that the Charlotte, North Carolina-based bank had already received, according to statements from ex-employees filed last week in federal court in Boston. The lender improperly disqualified applicants to the Home Affordable Modification Program, or HAMP, according to a May 23 statement from Simone Gordon, a loss- mitigation specialist who left the company in 2012.

http://www.americanbanker.com/syndication/b-of-a-gave-500-dollar-bonuses-to-foreclose-on-clients-lawsuit-claims-1059890-1.html

G8 leaders agree tax evasion measure

Leaders of the G8 major economies have agreed new measures to clamp down on money launderers, illegal tax evaders and corporate tax avoiders.

Governments agreed to give each other automatic access to information on their residents' tax affairs.

They will also require shell companies - often used to exploit tax loopholes and invest money anonymously - to identify their effective owners.

The summit communique urged countries to "fight the scourge of tax evasion".

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-22956374

Rotting, Decaying And Bankrupt Detroit

Eventually the money runs out.  Much of America was shocked when the city of Detroit defaulted on a $39.7 million debt payment and announced that it was suspending payments on $2.5 billion of unsecured debt, but those who visit my site on a regular basis were probably not too surprised.  Anyone with half a brain and a calculator could see this coming from a mile away.  But people kept foolishly lending money to the city of Detroit, and now many of them are going to get hit really hard. 

Detroit Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr has submitted a proposal that would pay unsecured creditors about 10 cents on the dollar.  Similar haircuts would be made to underfunded pension and health benefits for retirees.  Orr is hoping that the creditors and the unions that he will be negotiating with will accept this package, but he concedes that there is still a "50-50 chance" that the city of Detroit will be forced to formally file for bankruptcy. 

But what Detroit is facing is not really that unique.  In fact, Detroit is a perfect example of what the future of America is going to look like.  We live in a nation that is rotting, decaying, drowning in debt and racing toward insolvency.  Already there are dozens of other cities across the nation that are poverty-ridden, crime-infested hellholes just like Detroit is, and hundreds of other communities are rapidly heading in that direction.  So don't look down on Detroit.  They just got there before the rest of us.

The following are some facts about Detroit that are absolutely mind-blowing...

1 - Detroit was once the fourth-largest city in the United States, and in 1960 Detroit had the highest per-capita income in the entire nation.

2 - Over the past 60 years, the population of Detroit has fallen by 63 percent.

3 - At this point, approximately 40 percent of all the streetlights in the city don't work.

4 - Some ambulances in the city of Detroit have been used for so long that they have more than 250,000 miles on them.

5 - 210 of the 317 public parks in the city of Detroit have been permanently closed down.

6 - According to the New York Times, there are now approximately 70,000 abandoned buildings in Detroit.

7 - Approximately one-third of Detroit's 140 square miles is either vacant or derelict.

8 - Less than half of the residents of Detroit over the age of 16 are working at this point.

9 - If you can believe it, 60 percent of all children in the city of Detroit are living in poverty.

10 - According to one very shocking report, 47 percent of the residents of Detroit are functionally illiterate.

11 - Today, police solve less than 10 percent of the crimes that are committed in Detroit.

12 - Ten years ago, there were approximately 5,000 police officers in the city of Detroit.  Today, there are only about 2,500 and another 100 are scheduled to be eliminated from the force soon.

13 - Due to budget cutbacks, most police stations in Detroit are now closed to the public for 16 hours a day.

14 - The murder rate in Detroit is 11 times higher than it is in New York City.

15 - Crime has gotten so bad in Detroit that even the police are telling people to "enter Detroit at your own risk".

16 - Right now, the city of Detroit is facing $20 billion in debt and unfunded liabilities.  That breaks down to more than $25,000 per resident.

As Detroit Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr noted last week, it took a very long time for Detroit to get into this condition...

“What the average Detroiter needs to understand is that where we are right now is a culmination of years and years and years of kicking the can down the road,” said Orr, adding that his proposal should not be seen as a “hostile act” but as a step in the right direction.

Does that sound familiar?

It should.

U.S. politicians have also been kicking the can down the road for "years and years and years".

But eventually you can't kick the can down the road anymore.

Sometimes it is helpful to step back and look at what we have done to ourselves over the past several decades.

For example, back in 1980 the U.S. national debt was less than one trillion dollars.  Today, it is rapidly approaching 17 trillion dollars.

And our debt binge has greatly accelerated under Barack Obama.

During Barack Obama's first term, the federal government accumulated more debt than it did under the first 42 U.S presidents combined.

Isn't that insane?

In fact, if you started paying off just the new debt that the U.S. has accumulated during the Obama administration at the rate of one dollar per second, it would take more than 184,000 years to pay it off.

The following are a lot more facts about our exploding national debt from one of my previous articles entitled "55 Facts About The Debt And U.S. Government Finances That Every American Voter Should Know"...

#1 While Barack Obama has been president, the U.S. government has spent about 11 dollars for every 7 dollars of revenue that it has actually brought in.

#2 During the fiscal year that just ended, the U.S. government took in 2.449 trillion dollars but it spent 3.538 trillion dollars.

#3 During fiscal year 2011, over a trillion dollars of government money was spent on 83 different welfare programs, and those numbers do not even include Social Security or Medicare.

#4 Over the past four years, welfare spending has increased by 32 percent.  In inflation-adjusted dollars, spending on those programs has risen by 378 percent over the past 30 years.  At this point, more than 100 million Americans are enrolled in at least one welfare program run by the federal government.  Once again, these figures do not even include Social Security or Medicare.

#5 Over the past year, the number of Americans getting a free cell phone from the federal government has grown by 43 percent.  Now more than 16 million Americans are enjoying what has come to be known as an "Obamaphone".

#6 When Barack Obama first entered the White House, about 32 million Americans were on food stamps.  Now, 47 million Americans are on food stamps.  And this has happened during what Obama refers to as "an economic recovery".

#7 The U.S. government recently spent 27 million dollars on pottery classes in Morocco.

#8 The U.S. Department of Agriculture recently spent $300,000 to encourage Americans to eat caviar at a time when more families than ever are having a really hard time just trying to put any food on the table at all.

#9 During 2012, the National Science Foundation spent $516,000 to support the creation of a video game called "Prom Week", which apparently simulates "all the social interactions of the event."

#10 The U.S. Department of Agriculture gave the largest snack food maker in the world (PepsiCo Inc.) a total of 1.3 million dollars in corporate welfare that was used to help build "a Greek yogurt factory in New York."

#11 The National Science Foundation recently gave researchers at Purdue University $350,000.  They used part of that money to help fund a study that discovered that if golfers imagine that a hole is bigger it will help them with their putting.

#12 If you can believe it, $10,000 from the federal government was actually used to purchase talking urinal cakes up in Michigan.

#13 The National Science Foundation recently gave a whopping $697,177 to a New York City-based theater company to produce a musical about climate change.

#14 The National Institutes of Health recently gave $666,905 to a group of researchers that is studying the benefits of watching reruns on television.

#15 The National Science Foundation has given 1.2 million dollars to a team of "scientists" that is spending part of that money on a study that is seeking to determine whether elderly Americans would benefit from playing World of Warcraft or not.

#16 The National Institutes of Health recently gave $548,731 to a team of researchers that concluded that those that drink heavily in their thirties also tend to feel more immature.

#17 The National Science Foundation recently spent $30,000 on a study to determine if "gaydar" actually exists.  This is the conclusion that the researchers reached at the end of the study...

"Gaydar is indeed real and… its accuracy is driven by sensitivity to individual facial features"

#18 Back in 2011, the National Institutes of Health spent $592,527 on a study that sought to figure out once and for all why chimpanzees throw poop.

#19 The U.S. government spends more on the military than China, Russia, Japan, India, and the rest of NATO combined.  In fact, the United States accounts for 41.0% of all military spending on the planet.  China is next with only 8.2%.

#20 In a previous article, I noted that close to 500,000 federal employees now make at least $100,000 a year.

#21 In 2006, only 12 percent of all federal workers made $100,000 or more per year.  Now, approximately 22 percent of all federal workers do.

#22 If you can believe it, there are 77,000 federal workers that make more than the governors of their own states do.

#23 During 2010, the average federal employee in the Washington D.C. area received total compensation worth more than $126,000.

#24 The U.S. Department of Defense had just nine civilians earning $170,000 or more back in 2005.  When Barack Obama became president, the U.S. Department of Defense had 214 civilians earning $170,000 or more.  By June 2010, the U.S. Department of Defense had 994 civilians earning $170,000 or more.

#25 During 2010, compensation for federal employees came to a grand total of approximately 447 billion dollars.

#26 If you can believe it, close to 15,000 retired federal employees are currently collecting federal pensions for life worth at least $100,000 annually.  That list includes such names as Newt Gingrich, Bob Dole, Trent Lott, Dick Gephardt and Dick Cheney.

#27 During 2010, the federal government spent $33,387 on the hair care needs of U.S. Senators.

#28 During 2010, U.S. Senators pulled $72,370 out of the "Senate Restaurant Fund".

#29 During 2010, an average of $4,005,900 of U.S. taxpayer money was spent on "personal" and "office" expenses per Senator.

#30 In 2013, 3.7 million dollars will be spent to support the lavish lifestyles of former presidents such as George W. Bush and Bill Clinton.

#31 During 2011, the federal government spent a total of 1.4 BILLION dollars just on the Obamas.

#32 When you combine all federal government spending, all state government spending and all local government spending, it comes to approximately 41 percent of U.S. GDP.  But don't worry, all of our politicians insist that this is not socialism.

#33 As I have written about previously, less than 30 percent of all Americans lived in a home where at least one person received financial assistance from the federal government back in 1983.  Today, that number is sitting at an all-time high of 49 percent.

#34 Back in 1990, the federal government accounted for just 32 percent of all health care spending in America.  This year, it is being projected that the federal government will account for more than 50 percent of all health care spending in the United States.

#35 The number of Americans on Medicaid soared from 34 million in 2000 to 54 million in 2011, and it is being projected that Obamacare will add 16 million more Americans to the Medicaid rolls.

#36 In one of my previous articles, I discussed how it is being projected that the number of Americans on Medicare will grow from 50.7 million in 2012 to 73.2 million in 2025.

#37 If you can believe it, Medicare is facing unfunded liabilities of more than 38 trillion dollars over the next 75 years.  That comes to approximately $328,404 for each and every household in the United States.

#38 In the United States today, more than 61 million Americans receive some form of Social Security benefits.  By 2035, that number is projected to soar to a whopping 91 million.

#39 Overall, the Social Security system is facing a 134 trillion dollar shortfall over the next 75 years.

#40 When Barack Obama first took office, the U.S. national debt was about 10.6 trillion dollars.  Now it is about 16.7 trillion dollars.  That is an increase of 6.1 trillion dollars in a little more than 4 years.

#41 The federal government has now run a budget deficit of more than a trillion dollars for four years in a row.

#42 If right this moment you went out and started spending one dollar every single second, it would take you more than 31,000 years to spend one trillion dollars.

#43 If you were alive when Jesus Christ was born and you spent one million dollars every single day since that point, you still would not have spent one trillion dollars by now.

#44 Some suggest that "taxing the rich" is the answer.  Well, if Bill Gates gave every single penny of his entire fortune to the U.S. government, it would only cover the U.S. budget deficit for 15 days.

#45 If the federal government used GAAP accounting standards like publicly traded corporations do, the real federal budget deficit for 2011 would have been 5 trillion dollars instead of 1.3 trillion dollars.

#46 The United States already has more government debt per capita than Greece, Portugal, Italy, Ireland or Spain does.

#47 At this point, the United States government is responsible for more than a third of all the government debt in the entire world.

#48 The amount of U.S. government debt held by foreigners is about 5 times larger than it was just a decade ago.

#49 Between 2007 and 2010, U.S. GDP grew by only 4.26%, but the U.S. national debt soared by 61% during that same time period.

#50 The U.S. national debt is now more than 37 times larger than it was when Richard Nixon took us off the gold standard.

#51 The U.S. national debt is now more than 5000 times larger than it was when the Federal Reserve was first created.

#52 The U.S. national debt jumped more on the very first day of fiscal year 2013 than it did from 1776 to 1941 combined.

#53 Historically, the interest rate on 10 year U.S. Treasuries has averaged 6.68 percent.  If the average interest rate on U.S. government debt rose to that level today, the U.S. government would find itself spending more than a trillion dollars per year just on interest on the national debt.

#54 A recently revised IMF policy paper entitled “An Analysis of U.S. Fiscal and Generational Imbalances: Who Will Pay and How?” projects that U.S. government debt will rise to about 400 percent of GDP by the year 2050.

#55 Boston University economist Laurence Kotlikoff is warning that the U.S. government is facing a gigantic tsunami of unfunded liabilities in the coming years that we are counting on our children and our grandchildren to pay.  Kotlikoff speaks of a "fiscal gap" which he defines as "the present value difference between projected future spending and revenue".  His calculations have led him to the conclusion that the federal government is facing a fiscal gap of 222 trillion dollars in the years ahead.

Please share this article with as many people as you can.  We are in the process of committing national financial suicide and time is rapidly running out to do anything about it.

Just like Detroit, a day is rapidly approaching when America will not be able to kick the can down the road anymore.

Sadly, our politicians don't seem inclined to do anything about it and most of the population seems to think that our exploding national debt is not a significant problem.

By the time it becomes clear how wrong they were, it will be far too late to do anything about it.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-06-17/rotting-decaying-and-bankrupt-%E2%80%93-if-you-want-see-future-america-just-look-detroit

Deutsche Bank "Is Horribly Undercapitalized... It's Ridiculous

Back in May 2012, [12]when we were making fun at the latest iteration of the now fatally discredited European stress tests, we took the first of many jabs at the what may currently be the world's most systematically important, and undercapitalized, bank in the world:

Finally, if anyone is still confused where the pain is headed next, here is a list from Morgan Stanley of all Euro banks with a Core Tier 1 ratio that is so low, that the banks will soon regret not raising more capital in the period of calm that the ECB's LTRO bought them.

 [13]

Also, one bank is missing from the list above: Deutsche Bank. CT1/TA: 1.68%. Oops.

That's right - Deutsche Bank was so bad that it wasn't even allowed to appear on a screen of Europe's most undercapitalized banks - and we helpfully pointed out its true capital ratio of just under 2%, and an implied leverage of 60x!
Fast forward 13 months to a Reuters interview [14]with former Kansas City Fed president and FOMC dissenter and sole voice of reason at the Federal Reserve, and current FDIC Vice Chairman Tom Hoenig, who confirmed that once again Zero Hedge was just a year ahead of the curve.

A top U.S. banking regulator called Deutsche Bank's capital levels "horrible" and said it is the worst on a list of global banks based on one measurement of leverage ratios. "It's horrible, I mean they're horribly undercapitalized," said Federal Deposit Insurance Corp Vice Chairman Thomas Hoenig in an interview. "They have no margin of error."  Deutsche's leverage ratio stood at 1.63 percent, according to Hoenig's numbers, which are based on European IFRS accounting rules as of the end of 2012.

In other words, the slighest systemic shock in Europe and Deustche Bank gets it. And as Deutsche Bank goes, so does Germany, so does Europe, so does the world.
Immediately confirming Hoenig's (and Zero Hedge's) observations, was Deutsche's prompt repeat that "all is well" and that "these numbers" are not like "those numbers."

"To say that we are undercapitalized is inaccurate because if you look at the Basel framework, we're now one of the best capitalized banks in the world after our capital raise," Deutsche Bank's Chief Financial Officer Stefan Krause told Reuters in an interview, when asked about Hoenig's comments. "To suggest that leverage puts us in a position to be a risk to the system is incorrect," Krause said, calling the gauge a "misleading measure" when used on its own.

Of course, DB's lies are perfectly expected - after all it is a question of fiath. So let's go back to Hoenig who continues to be one of the few voices of reason among the "very serious people":

Hoenig pointed to the gain in Deutsche Bank shares in January on the same day it posted a big quarterly loss, because it had improved its Basel III capital ratios by cutting risk-weighted assets.

"My other example with poor Deutsche Bank is that they lose $2 billion and raise their capital ratio. It's - I don't want to say insane, but it's ridiculous," Hoenig said.

A leverage ratio is a better method to show a firm's ability to absorb sudden losses, Hoenig says, and he has floated a plan to raise the ratio to 10 percent. He said the 3 percent leverage hurdle under Basel was a "pretend number."

Opponents of using such a ratio say that it ignores the risk in a bank's loan books, and can make a bank with only healthy borrowers look equally risky as a bank whose clients are less likely to pay back their loans. It also fails to take into account how easily a bank can sell its assets - so-called liquidity - or whether it is hedged against risk.

Still, equity analysts said that while Deutsche Bank likely will meet regulatory capital requirements, its ratios look weak.

Ugh: terminology, ratios, numbers. It's gives a chap the belly-ache [15].
But just as we were about a year ahead with our warning of DB's "off the charts" leverage, so we wish to remind readers that some time around June 2014, the topic of Deutsche Bank's $72.8 trillion in derivatives, or about 21 times more than the GDP of Germany, will be the recurring news headline du jour.
Recall from April: "At $72.8 Trillion, Presenting The Bank With The Biggest Derivative Exposure In The World (Hint: Not JPMorgan [16])" which for those who missed it, we urge rereading:
 [17]
http://www.zerohedge.com/print/475296 

eGold holders have until October 1st 2013 to file claim

UPDATE ON CLAIM FILING PROCESS: THE CLAIM FILING PROCESS FOR ELIGIBLE VAP ACCOUNTS BEGINS ON MONDAY, JUNE 3, 2013.  Account holders will  have until October 1, 2013, to file claims.  VAP CIP (customer identification program) will be available to account holders during the entire claims filing period.   Account holders must log into their account at E-Gold (www.e-gold.com), successfully complete CIP (customer identification program), and received login credentials before beginning the claim filing process on this website.  VAP CIP will be available to account holders during the entire claims filing period.  If you have specific questions about your E-Gold account or the CIP process, please contact E-Gold Customer Service directly, by going  to the E-Gold website at www.e-gold.com  and click the "Contact Us" link at the top of the page to navigate to the Customer Services web form.  E-Gold Customer Services will be able to help you with problems logging into your account, issues with the name or owner of your account, lost pass phrases, deceased issues, etc. If you experience technical problems with this website (www.egoldclaimsprocess.com), please contactinfo@egoldclaimsprocess.com.

https://egoldclaimsprocess.com/Home.aspx

Singapore authorities rap banks in rate rigging probe

Singapore's central bank has censured 20 banks for attempting to rig benchmark interest rates.

The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) found that 133 traders had tried to influence the rates in an echo of the 2012 US/UK Libor rigging scandal.

Some of the cases have been referred to the police, and the city-state's Attorney General Chambers.

UBS, Royal Bank of Scotland and ING have been told to set aside funds of over S$1bn (£500m; $800m) each.

Another 16 banks have also been ordered to set aside lesser amounts, including Barclays, Deutsche Bank, JP Morgan and HSBC, as statutory reserves at the MAS.

The central bank ordered a review into the way banks located in the country set benchmark rates for borrowing and foreign exchange transactions.

The Association of Banks in Singapore and the Singapore Foreign Exchange Markets Committee, which carried out the review, have recommended scrapping publication of the Singapore Interbank Offered Rate (Sibor) - a benchmark for borrowing costs.BBC News - Singapore authorities rap banks in rate rigging probe

Thousands of firms swap data with government agencies

Thousands of technology, finance and manufacturing companies are working closely with U.S. national security agencies, providing sensitive information and in return receiving benefits that include access to classified intelligence, four people familiar with the process said.

These programs, whose participants are known as trusted partners, extend far beyond what was revealed by Edward Snowden, a computer technician who did work for the National Security Agency. The role of private companies has come under intense scrutiny since his disclosure this month that the NSA is collecting millions of U.S. residents’ telephone records and the computer communications of foreigners from Google Inc (GOOG). and other Internet companies under court order.

Many of these same Internet and telecommunications companies voluntarily provide U.S. intelligence organizations with additional data, such as equipment specifications, that don’t involve private communications of their customers, the four people said.

Makers of hardware and software, banks, Internet security providers, satellite telecommunications companies and many other companies also participate in the government programs. In some cases, the information gathered may be used not just to defend the nation but to help infiltrate computers of its adversaries.

U.S. Agencies Said to Swap Data With Thousands of Firms - Bloomberg

Reuters Gives Elite Traders Early Advantage

A closely watched consumer confidence number that routinely moves markets upon release is accessed by an elite group of traders, for a fee, a full two seconds before its official release, according to a document obtained by CNBC.

A contract signed by Thomson Reuters, the news agency and data provider, and the University of Michigan, which produces the widely cited economic statistic, stipulates that the data will be posted on the web for the general public at 10 a.m. on the days it is released.

Five minutes before that, at 9:55 a.m., the data is distributed on a conference call for Thomson Reuters' paying clients, who are given certain headline numbers.

Thomson Reuters Gives Elite Traders Early Advantage

CBOE fined for failure to police naked shorting

The Chicago Board Options Exchange has agreed to pay a $6 million fine relating to what regulators call "various systematic breakdowns" in the policing of its own procedures. 

The Securities and Exchange Commission announced the charge Tuesday and accused CBOE of "a failure to enforce or even fully comprehend rules to prevent abusive short selling."

In addition to the $6 million fine, the SEC said CBOE will implement major remedial measures to settle the charges.  The fine is the first levied against an exchange for violations related to its own regulatory oversight. 

The SEC said its investigation found that CBOE failed to adequately regulate and control a conflict for one of its member firms, Chicago-based optionsXpress. The SEC later charged that firm in a so-called naked short-selling scheme, or illegally selling shares it did not own.  

The SEC claims CBOE didn't properly investigate the firm's compliance and interfered with the SEC's inquiry. 

"CBOE demonstrated an overall inability to enforce (its own procedures) with an ineffective surveillance program that failed to detect wrongdoing despite numerous red flags," the SEC said. 

CBOE fined $6 million in naked short selling scheme - chicagotribune.com

Banks hoard nearly $1 Trillion at Fed

FORTUNE -- U.S. banks now have $1 trillion at the Federal Reserve. It's far more than they have ever had before, and it could be a big problem.

And it's a new one. Before the financial crisis, the amount of cash banks kept idle at the Fed rarely topped $25 billion, which in terms of a multi-trillion dollar banking system is peanuts. But shortly after the start of the financial crisis, as a move to help the banks and save the economy (or perhaps the other way around), the Fed began paying interest on money banks deposited at the Fed.

Money flowed in. It has been rising ever since, but the rate of increase has picked up recently. In the first three months of this year, bank reserves at the Fed rose nearly $200 billion, or 25%, after barely budging in 2012. The amount passed the trillion dollar mark for the first time in April. Still, all that extra cash has done little to boost lending, which dropped in the first quarter.

http://finance.fortune.cnn.com/2013/06/12/federal-reserve-bank-deposits/?iid=Lead

MetaQuotes clashes with ZuluTrade, Myfxbook, Tradency and Tradeo – Shakeup in Copy-Trading World

MetaQuotes, the company behind the popular trading software MetaTrader 4, has warned brokers not to work with Zulutrade, Myfxbook, Tradency and Tradeo. These third party providers are accused by MetaQuotes of hacking the MT4 platform. 

http://www.forexcrunch.com/metaquotes-clashes-with-zulutrade-myfxbook-tradency-and-tradeo/