Morning roundup: Swipe fee caps hurting retailers?

Here's what's happening this morning in banking and finance news:

• Caps on the "swipe fees" merchants pay banks when customers pay with their debit cards - the government regulation that prompted banks to implement controversial debit card fees are hurting some merchants instead of helping them, the Wall Street Journal reports.

• Those fee caps are also killing bank profits, according to Forbes.
  

• The European crisis is about more than debt, a Bloomberg column explains.

• Is the job market improving? Reuters reports new claims for unemployment benefits have fallen to a nine-month low.

• Shareholders might have to wait even longer for Bank of America and Citigroup to boost their dividends, according to MarketWatch.
  

Investment group withdraws bid for 500 million BofA shares

The mysterious investment group that sought to buy 500 million shares of Bank of America stock has withdrawn its offer.

IPIC Group Ltd., which did not name its officers and formed for the sole purpose of seeking the shares, announced in a press release Wednesday that it was terminating its offer. It cited the bank's recent downgrade from the Standard and Poors rating agency as the reason.

The group had made an offer to buy the shares for $6, a premium over a share price that closed at $5.89 on Wednesday. The all-cash deal could have been worth as much as $3 billion. It would have made IPIC the bank's largest institutional investor.

In a securities filing Tuesday, Bank of America warned shareholders not to tender their shares to the company, saying it posed "significant risks."

CFPB releases model credit card agreement

The fledgling Consumer Financial Protection Bureau today released a model credit card agreement that it hopes issuers will adopt.

The two-page document uses straightforward language, which the CFPB says should help both consumers and issuers.

The American Bankers Association released a short statement in response today, calling it a positive initiative but one that could be improved.

"For more than 20 years, the banking industry has strongly supported efforts to provide consumers with a short, easy-to-understand summary of their credit card agreement," chief counsel Kenneth Clayton said in the statement. "The model released by the Bureau is a good first step, but could be made even shorter, as well as less susceptible to costly lawsuits and the higher consumer prices that come from them."

Morning roundup: BofA was hours away from moving to New York in 2009

Here's a look at what's news in banking and finance this morning:

• In a long-form account of former BNY Mellon CEO Robert Kelly's career, Fortune Magazine reports that Bank of America had offered Kelly the top job to succeed Ken Lewis. Kelly had accepted, contingent on a $15 million to $20 million annual salary and the bank's move to New York. But hours before the announcement was to be made, Kelly reconsidered and begged BNY's board to take him back.


• Big banks want more leeway as the Volcker rule goes into effect to avoid "fire sales" of assets, Reuters reports.


• Forbes magazine likens regulators to bad parents in their dealings with big banks, citing Bank of America as an example.


• Google and Verizon are battling over mobile payment technology as the mobile "wallet" becomes more popular, the Wall Street Journal says.


• "Too big to fail" banks are back on the Senate agenda today, Bloomberg reports.

BofA to shareholders: Don't accept IPIC offer

Bank of America Corp. is urging stockholders to ignore a private investment firm's offer to buy as many as 500 million outstanding common shares, the bank said in a securities filing today.

The filing comes two weeks after Delaware-based IPIC Group Ltd. offered to buy the shares for $6 each in a deal that would make the group the Charlotte bank's largest institutional shareholder.

That represents a premium on Bank of America stock, which closed at $5.78 today, down a penny from the day before and down almost 60 percent for the year.

"Bank of America is not in any way associated with IPIC and recommends that stockholders do not tender their shares in response to this unsolicited mini-tender offer," the bank said in an 8K filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

It said the deal poses "significant risks" to shareholders. Mini-tender offers, which seek to buy less than 5 percent of a company's stock directly from current investors, aren't subject to the same federal disclosure and procedural requirements as other offers and therefore don't provide the same protection, the bank said.

IPIC said in a news release last month it would pay for the shares after its offer expires Dec. 23 - or, if fewer than 500 million shares are tendered by then, March 30. That means shareholders who agree to sell might lose control of their shares for several months and be unable to sell at a higher market price if the stock rises, Bank of America wrote.

The investment firm, which did not ask the bank's board of directors to approve the deal, has also not disclosed its executive officers, promoters or other information, the bank's filing said. As a result, shareholders might have a hard time tracking down their shares if the firm doesn't return the shares or complete the purchase, the bank said.

"Bank of America strongly urges shareholders to obtain current market quotes for Bank of America common stock, consult with their financial advisors, review the conditions to the offer and exercise extreme caution in evaluating this unsolicited offer," the bank's filing said.

Credit Union association lowers estimate on number of new customers

The Credit Union National Association has drastically lowered its estimates for how many new members it gained in October, shrinking the number it had trumpted as the anti-bank backlash and Bank Transfer Day movement spread across the country.

In the weeks leading up to the Nov. 5 social-media driven Bank Transfer Day, the association initially reported gaining 650,000 new members and $4.5 billion in new deposits.

But after a more scientific sampling of credit union data, the association revised the estimates. Now the figure for October is cited as 214,000. In September and October combined, CUNA now estimates 441,000 new members.

It's still significant. The September and October number represents about 75 percent of the growth in all of last year.

CUNA also reports 400,000 new checking accounts in October from existing members. Adding that number to the new member total gets the number close to the 650,000 figure in the intial survey.

The association says that the survey was intended to "provide a rapid response" and believes misinterpretation of the survey question led credit unions to include new checking account numbers as well.

BB&T names new Charlotte-based senior vice president

BB&T has named Steve Clement, who is based in Charlotte, as a new senior vice president responsible for strategy and special projects in the bank's Technology Services Department.

Clement joined the Winston-Salem based bank this year. The position is a new one.