Citigroup Inc., Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc and JPMorgan Chase & Co. are among five banks named in a class action lawsuit in Australia seeking damages for colluding on foreign-exchange trading strategies.  

JPMorgan Chase & Co has cut ties with Purdue Pharma LP over the OxyContin maker’s alleged role in the U.S. opioid crisis, forcing it to find a new bank to manage cash and bill payments, people familiar with the matter said on Thursday.

Twitter, Inc. TWTR 4.21% traded higher on Wednesday on reports the company is experimenting with its ad load, and one analyst said Thursday that improving Twitter’s ad business is one of several reasons for investors to love the stock.

Amidst the backdrop of persisting trade disputes between U.S and China, and following President Trump’s tariff hike from 10% to 25% on $200 billion worth Chinese goods, global equities took a hit this past week as investors withdrew more than $20.5 billion from equity funds. Analysts at Bank of America Merrill Lynch (BAC) revealed that cash outflow from equity funds were the third highest this year.Overall, equity fund outflows totaled $116 billion this year, the worst showing since 2016. On the other hand, bonds - perceived as safe heaven during times of market distress - reached their 18th consecutive week of cash inflows totaling $7.3 billion.

Quorum, developed by JPMorgan (NYSE: JPM), will become the first distributed ledger platform available through Azure Blockchain Service, enabling JPMorgan and Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) customers to build and scale blockchain networks in the cloud. Read More...

JPMorgan Chase & Co shuffled the jobs of two of its most senior women executives on Wednesday, moving Chief Financial Officer Marianne Lake to a role leading consumer lending and naming the head of card services Jenn Piepszak to replace her. Read more...

Citigroup Inc. reported estimate-beating results on Monday as its investment banking business grew, and the company expanded its net-interest margin.Analysts believe that a reduction in tax rate to 21% is responsible for Citi’s improvement from a year ago. However, the bank’s income from continuing operations declined slightly, partly due to divestiture last year.

Net income increased +2% from the year-ago quarter to $4.71 billion. The company’s quarterly revenue of $18.576 billion, however, fell a bit short of $18.634 billion that analysts estimated (based on Refinitiv). "Lower market volumes and client-financing balances," were cited by the bank as reasons behind the segment’s relatively weak performance. Nevertheless, the pullback in stock-trading was partially offset by a +20% surge in Citi’s investment banking revenue.

Chief executives of some of the largest U.S. banks faced off with the House Financial Services committee for the first time since the financial crisis on Wednesday armed with the healthy balance sheets, but lawmakers grilled executives more on social issues than business fundamentals. Read More...

The bank has also zeroed-in on health-care cost increases for lower-paid employees. This step came only a day before, when the bank’s CEO along with the CEOs of other five banks including J.P Morgan Chase (JPM) were scheduled to testify before the Democrat-led House Financial Services Committee in Washington.Low wages is an pressing issue for the 2020 election and this step could be timely and strategic to diffuse any criticism in the near future. The issue is indeed alarming, owing to the gap between high salaried employees and the low waged ones like bank tellers.

Bank of America says it will help low- and moderate-income people in the U.S. become homeowners by extending $5 billion in mortgages. The five-year program, called Neighborhood Solutions, also includes grants for down payments and closing costs and mortgage packages with small down payments. “We know many of our clients want the power to own their first home, which can sometimes be challenging,” D. Steve Boland, the bank’s consumer lending head, said in the statement.The new programs will “aid them in overcoming barriers and put sustainable homeownership within reach.”

Wells Fargo is cutting about 200 jobs in the bank’s consumer banking business payroll services.The laid-off employees will be granted severance and permit to be on the bank’s health plan temporarily. The bank aims to control costs through consolidating its operations, processes’ improvement through technology and mechanization, as well as the outsourcing of certain operations.

JPMorgan Chase & Co. is dismissing hundreds of workers in its asset and wealth-management division after a periodic review of staffing, according to a person briefed on the matter.Read More...

The U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) said on Tuesday it had fined Citigroup $25 million for violating the Fair Housing Act by denying some borrowers preferential rates on the basis of their race, color or other factors. Read more...

The scandal-plagued U.S. bank Wells Fargo & Co. (WFC - Get Report) is "too big to manage," a top U.S. lawmaker told CEO Tim Sloan at a hearing Tuesday in Washington.READ MORE...

Wells Fargo CEO Tim Sloan took a bipartisan battering in front of the House Financial Services Committee, as lawmakers blasted the executive for a series of scandals engulfing the bank. Read More...

London headquartered HSBC, Europe’s largest bank, recently published its full-year report revealing several forecast misses primarily due to a challenging fourth quarter. The bank’s pre-tax profit for 2018 stood at $19.89 billion, 15.9% higher than the previous year, versus a forecast of a 23.8% jump to $21.26 billion.Reported revenue was 4.5% higher than 2017 to $53.78 billion versus a forecast of 6.28% higher to $54.674 billion. Other financial metrics include: Net interest margin, a measure of lending profitability, stood at 1.66% as of December 31, 2018 – higher than the 1.63% seen in 2017; earnings per share for 2018 was $0.63 compared to $0.48 in 2017; and common equity tier 1 ratio — a proportion of the bank's core capital to assets — as on December 31 2018 stood at 14 % compared to 14.5% at end-2017.

The first cryptocurrency created by a major U.S. bank is here — and it's from J.P. Morgan Chase. Read More...

Bank of America’s Q4 2018 profit tripled to a record $7.3 billion, owing to strong performance from its consumer-banking business and the lower corporate tax rate. On the back of this better-than-expected performance, shares of the company rose by +7.16% on Wednesday of last week.Credit and debit card spending also expanded by 6%. However, like most banks BAC faltered in the fixed-income trading business, where revenue fell by 15% to $1.45 billion compared to analysts estimates of $1.62 billion.

The U.S. government shutdown is causing some real pain, but economists are largely brushing off the risk to the expansion.Read More...