Jamie Dimon’s worst fears for the banking industry realized with Capital One data hack

Move over Equifax..

• At just the two biggest U.S. banks — J.P. Morgan Chase and Bank of America — cybersecurity budgets have swollen to a combined $1.4 billion a year.
• The industry has been employing everything from low-tech reminders about passwords posted in offices to sophisticated data analytics and risk-management programs to stay ahead of criminals.
• “The threat of cyber security may very well be the biggest threat to the U.S. financial system,” Dimon said in an April letter to shareholders.

It’s among the worst fears of any bank CEO.

A lone hacker managed to steal the personal information of more than 100 million Capital One customers, the Virginia-based bank said Monday in a release. Most of what was taken related to customers’ credit-card applications from 2005 to early 2019, including names, addresses, dates of birth and income, the lender said.

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Diary of a Deutsche Bank stock trader: The day I lost my job

On July 8, Deutsche Bank presented the full details of its latest strategic plan to become a leaner, more profitable organisation. These included18,000 jobs cuts across its global workforce and the closure of its equities business.

The bank wasted no time in firing staff. Deutsche’s chief executive Christian Sewing said of the cuts at the time: “Let me really emphasise that this is the bitter part of our decisions.”

Financial News ’s Nell Mackenzie spoke to a member of Deutsche’s stock-trading team in London who lost their job during the restructuring and agreed to share their account of the day on condition of anonymity. 

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CFPB claims debt collection firm Forster & Garbus robo-sued thousands on behalf of Citibank, Discover, others

Move over robo-signing…

During the foreclosure crisis, a number of lenders, servicers, law firms, and others engaged in a practice where employees basically rubber-stamped thousands of foreclosure cases without reviewing any of the relevant details.

That practice came to be known as robo-signing.

Now, a new lawsuit from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau sheds light on a similar practice that apparently exists within the debt collection industry – let’s call it “robo-suing.”

The CFPB on Friday filed suit against debt collection law firm Forster & Garbus, accusing the New York firm of filing thousands of debt collection lawsuits against borrowers despite allegedly conducting only superficial reviews of the relevant documents before deciding to sue.

According to the CFPB, creditors and debt buyers refer credit card, auto loan, student loan, home equity loan debts, and others to the firm for collection. Among the companies that have used Forster & Garbus are Citibank and Discover, according to the CFPB.

Since Jan. 1, 2014, Forster & Garbus’ clients have placed more than 136,700 accounts with the firm for collection.

According to the CFPB, during the time in question (2014 through 2016), Forster & Garbus employed approximately 10 or 11 attorneys, in addition to its two named partners.

Despite that small roster of attorneys, Forster & Garbus files suits in New York courts on a “massive scale,” the CFPB claims.

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Countrywide founder Angelo Mozilo says ‘for some unknown reason, I got blamed’ for subprime crisis

lol!!

Angelo Mozilo is done being the villain.

Speaking at an exclusive hedge fund conference in Las Vegas this week, the disgraced former head of Countrywide Financial said he doesn’t understand — and doesn’t care to understand — why he is still being held responsible for the 2008 financial meltdown, driven by a collapse in shoddy subprime loans, many of them sold by Countrywide.

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New York launches its own CFPB

Awesome…

Following through on a pledge made more than a year ago, the New York Department of Financial Services is launching its own version of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, seeking to fill the consumer protection gaps that are beginning to appear as the Trump administration puts more of its stamp on the CFPB.

Back in January 2018, Mick Mulvaney, then the acting director of the CFPB, told the bureau’s employees that the agency would be much gentler towards the companies it regulates under his watch.

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City of Los Angeles to replace Wells Fargo as main banking partner following scandal, stricter rules By: Oscar Flores, FOX 11

LOS ANGELES, Calif. (FOX 11) – The city of Los Angeles is set to replace Wells Fargo as its main banking partner following the bank’s fake accounts scandal and stricter rules enacted in the aftermath.

The information was made public on Monday after a City Council committee approved a report outlining Bank of America and JPMorgan Chase as the top contenders to replace Wells Fargo.

Union Bank was recommended to continue handling the city’s Neighborhood Council Funding Program.

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Wells Fargo accused of misleading homeowners in mortgage crisis aftermat

Wells Fargo is being accused of misleading homeowners who were seeking to lower their home payments in the aftermath of the mortgage crisis.

A class-action lawsuit filed in White Plains federal bankruptcy court says the scandal-ridden bank mishandled loan modification trials it was required by law to entertain following the 2008 mortgage meltdown.

According to the suit, the bank told certain underwater mortgage holders that they could qualify for reduced monthly payments — and keep their homes — if they followed certain procedures, including making regular payments at the reduced rate for at least three months.

But when it came time to make the reduced payments permanent, the borrowers were rejected for “title issues” that had not been disclosed to them in advance, the lawsuit said.

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Federal regulators expressed ‘no confidence’ in Wells Fargo CEO

That’s probably why Sloan said peace out to his job..

At least three of Washington’s most powerful regulators had expressed “no confidence” in Wells Fargo’s CEO, Tim Sloan, in the weeks leading up to his abrupt resignation Thursday, The Post has learned.

There was a “regulatory push” led by the Federal Reserve, Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, and Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. — three of the bank’s principal regulators — to oust Sloan from his perch at the bank in recent weeks, according to a person briefed on the matter.

“There were multiple regulators voicing no confidence,” the person said of the OCC, the Fed and the FDIC.

Bryan Hubbard, a spokesman for the OCC, declined to comment but directed The Post to an open consent order it has with the bank, from April 2018, allowing it to “provide additional guidance” on senior executive officers and board members.

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Bye Felicia! Wells Fargo CEO Tim Sloan abruptly steps down

Wells Fargo announced Thursday that the embattled Sloan is relinquishing his post as CEO and president of the megabank and stepping down immediately.

According to the bank, Sloan is retiring as CEO, president, and board member on June 30, 2019, but his retirement is taking immediate effect.

The bank said that C. Allen Parker, who currently serves as the bank’s general counsel, will now take over as interim CEO, president, and member of the board.

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Supreme Court makes it harder for borrowers to fight foreclosures in non-judicial states

Law firms, mortgage lenders and servicers were just awarded more protection in serving non-judicial foreclosures, according to a recent Supreme Court ruling.

The ruling is a victory for the mortgage industry in its fight to retrieve property from delinquent homeowners. One attorney claims the ruling may eliminate thousands of similar homeowner lawsuits.

In the case of the Obduskey v. McCarthy & Holthus decision from earlier today, the homeowner tried to fight his non-judicial foreclosure in Colorado.

Each state differs in foreclosure requirements, but generally fit into two category: foreclosures that get to be decided by the courts or foreclosures that are not — a non-judicial foreclosure. Colorado is a non-judicial foreclosure state.

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