Goldman to pay $22M penalty

Welcome to the morning roundup. Here's a look at today's banking and finance news.

Goldman penalty. Goldman Sachs will pay $22 million to settle allegations by federal regulators that the bank did not have adequate policies to prevent research from being passed inappropriately to preferred clients, Reuters reports. People familiar with the matter told the news agency U.S. securities regulators are preparing to announce the deal.

New trading platform. Asset manager BlackRock Inc. plans to launch a trading platform that would let the firm and its peers trade bonds directly with one another, bypassing investment banks, the Wall Street Journal reports. Charlotte-based Bank of America once owned a large chunk of BlackRock; it shed its remaining stake last year as it worked to streamline operations.

Fight over mortgage claims. JPMorgan Chase & Co. CEO Jamie Dimon said investors demanding the bank buy back soured loans or pay them for losses on mortgage securities "face a long and difficult road," Bloomberg reports. The claimants lining up include holders of $95 billion of bonds represented by the law firm that won $8.5 billion last year from BofA.

Lesson learned? Wall Street's reaction to Greg Smith's resignation from Goldman Sachs - via an op-ed in the New York Times last month - suggests an important management lesson is being missed, Fortune writes.