It’s hard to keep up with the #FinCEN files, so here’s an attempt to summarize the main articles published in Europe and the US.
On HSBC we hear of a Ponzi scheme for 30m$ for which the bank filed a SAR, but there are allegations that HSBC should have stopped it earlier.
In Sweden, DI reports that there are 76 SARs, split between some of the usual suspects: SEB 41, SHB 6, Nordea 1 and the mighty Lansforsakringar (I’m pretty sure I misspelled that one)… 26. But all for very small volumes (a few SEKm max, some only for a few kSEK)
In Norway, DNB is linked with 1bn NOK of transactions but i'm struggling to find more info. We know they are involved in the Samherji fisheries scandal, so it could be that.
In Denmark, as far I can see it’s mostly old stories about the great Danske Estonia, with its 40000% ROE and totally legitimate business and 5462% market share and 15794% CAGR.
In the Netherlands, we can see some link between ING and the Deutsche mirror trades through ING Slaski. Again that’s a rather old story afaict (ING has already been fined for this.)
ABN and the Belgian banks seem to do ok - I can only see references to very small transactions for Belgian banks and nothing on ABN.
And now, dear followers, your favourite topic #ItsAlwaysDeutsche.
And now, dear followers, your favorite topicart of the reporting. This is again an old story but there are a few new snippets worth mentioning.
What did we learn? 1) The fact that it should/could have been stopped earlier is new (but hardly unexpected.) The 100 alerts raised by internal system sound bad.
2) Also bad, the (alleged) meetings between BOFA & Achleitner. Escalating such a matter to the chairman is kind of Wow... The bofa guys must have been really spooked.
3) the dodgy audit of the Russian subsidiary is fantastic. The only missing bit is a **** ESG rating for the Moscow office and a fantastic staff retention scheme. It does sound like the (internal) auditors really enjoyed Moscow and its nightlife.
What’s also bad here is that the current head of Deutsche was the head of audit back then… even if not directly involved, it reflects poorly.
But tbh, the worse is probably that it was Bofa that had to file the SAR. I mean Bofa isn't exactly the red cross.
If even *another bank* thinks what you’re doing smells shit, and reports you to authorities, it can’t be good.
The files also mentions the correspondent banking stuff for DB, especially with Danske, but tbf all you needed to do was read the recent transaction with the DOJ to get the juicy details (or my thread on it.) So nothing new.
And to finish, I can’t see anything significant on the large French banks. Well done, guys, or am I missing something ?
If you see more, please do share, I’ll try to update this thread!
What did Twitter do with that tweet! It was supposed to read:
"#ItsAlwaysDeutsche.
And now, dear followers, your favourite topic.
The Deutsche Mirror trade is a big part of the global reporting. This is again an old story but there are a few new snippets worth mentioning."
BNP has very good notes on the US elections and how to trade them. They are mostly focused on timing and the info you should focus on. Here's my summary
Before the elections
Apart from betting markets / polls, a source of info is mail-in ballot statistics.
Early voting doesn’t favor the Dems as much as 2020 (but Covid).
Before the elections
Some states - notably Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan North Carolina - start counting on Nov 5th. They are important states so could provide info.
Maybe you’ve seen the crazy price action on Close Brothers last Friday or heard about the Hopcraft appeal court ruling and its impact for UK banks.
What is it about?
I’ll try to explain why it’s important but not Armageddon.
This is all about getting financing when you buy a car, more precisely getting so-called “Point of sale” financing, i.e. the car dealer acts as broker for the actual bank or finance company providing the loan.
Back in 2021 the FCA banned a dubious practice: the broker’s fee was higher if the loan rate was higher, i.e. there was an incentive to propose a bad client deal. The Financial Ombudsman Service ruled (on pre-ban sales) with an indication of how redress should be calculated.
Commercial real estate lending is one of the biggest risks to the banking sector (hello, NYCB ?) – so it’s crucial that banks have an accurate assessment of the value of the collateral they have. The ECB did an inspection on this recently, and the results are hilarious. Thread.
For reference, the fair value of the collateral should be this
But what do banks really do? It's the horror museum.
For those of you trying to make sense of that story, here’s a recap. It’s wild.
RBI is a large Austrian bank formerly making 50% of its profits in Russia. After Russia invaded Ukraine, what happens to this biz is obviously their key financial, strategic and political question
Everyone in the “West” is pushing for a full exit but it’s not that easy because there’s also Russian law, RBI staff on the ground in Russia, clients, etc., no easy buyer to find and some argue selling for à like SG did is just handing out money to Putin’s cronies.
In Feb 2023 things start getting a bit awkward for RBI: it receives a request for information from OFAC – but we didn't really get to know what it was about.
What's going to be the costs of the Crowdstrike outage for the insurance industry? Impossible to know precisely but Mediobanca has a nice breakdown explaining why it won't be massive.
There are 3 areas of losses:
- cancelled flights
- Business interruption
- Cyber policies
1/n
Cancelled flights: reports are approx 5000 flights cancelled per day, still ongoing (backlog). That's big but 2010 Icelandic volcano had 100k cancelations ut MunRe explained the insured losses were low munichre.com/en/company/med…
BI for a week is not big. For example Swiss Re paid 1.5bn for the entire Covid lockdown. This is not even remotely the same