BB&T gets go-ahead to buy BankAtlantic, deal to close today

After months of legal wrangling, BB&T said Tuesday it has gotten the go-ahead from regulators to purchase Florida-based BankAtlantic in a $300 million deal set to close today.

The deal to take on 78 branches, $2.1 billion in loans and $3.3 billion in deposits was originally announced in November, but a Delaware court blocked it four months later saying the terms of the deal left behind too many distressed assets. The Winston-Salem bank tweaked its bid in March.

BankAtlantic's branches are expected to rebrand as BB&T in the fourth quarter.

RBS negotiating Libor settlement, sources say

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

RBS negotiating Libor deal. Royal Bank of Scotland Group is negotiating a settlement with authorities investigating attempted rate-rigging, the Wall Street Journal reports. The deal could be announced in the next few months, people familiar with the situation told the Journal.

Fed officials push for stimulus. Some Federal Reserve officials are trying to persuade colleagues to take new action to stimulate economic growth, arguing the economy's likely path itself is sufficient reason, the New York Times reports. Meanwhile, stocks opened flat ahead of the start of the Fed's two-day policy meeting, Reuters writes.

Job cuts. Deutsche Bank will eliminate 1,900 jobs, including 1,500 in its investment bank, Bloomberg reports. Germany's biggest bank is cutting the jobs in an effort to save nearly $3.7 billion as it grapples with declining revenue.

UBS profit falls. Profits at UBS fell 58 percent in the second quarter, largely due to a slide in investment banking income, the New York Times reports. The drop comes as the Swiss bank's CEO is scaling back investment banking and expanding wealth management operations.

Tree.com taps investment banker for CFO role

Tree.com, the Charlotte-based parent company of loan lead generation sites like LendingTree, has tapped a former Bear Sterns investment banker to be its new chief financial officer, the company announced Monday.

Alex Mandel, 42, had served as a financial consultant for the company since July 2010 before being named to fill the CFO role Monday. Before that, he worked 13 years as an investment banker advising media and entertainment businesses.

"I'm very excited to formally join Tree.com," said Alex Mandel. "This opportunity comes at a pivotal point in the company's evolution. We have become a more focused, nimble enterprise, with substantial resources to support our future growth."

He will be paid a $250,000 annual salary and be given 50,000 restricted stock units that vest over time, according to an SEC filing. Tree.com's stock (Nasdaq: TREE) was trading at $13.42 on Monday afternoon.

PNC putting ATMs in Harris Teeters

PNC Bank, which recently entered the Carolinas through its acquisition of RBC Bank, is putting 138 ATMs in Harris Teeter grocery stores across the two states, the bank said Monday.

Another 53 ATMs will go in Harris Teeters in Florida, Georgia, Virginia, Maryland and Delaware. They should be in place by the beginning of September.

Cardtronics, a publicly traded ATM operator that has a contract with Harris Teeter, owns the machines. ATMs in Harris Teeters had been branded by Bank of America.

The Pittsburgh bank's ATM expansion comes as other banks are pulling back. Bank of America cut 9 percent of its ATMs in the past year, including a number at gas stations and malls.

Bank of America already considered, rejected breaking up

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

Break up BofA? Nope. Bank of America's top executives and board members have already considered -- and rejected -- breaking up, illuminating a thought process that makes the increasing pressure from regulators and even industry insiders to separate apart the country's largest banks unlikely, the Wall Street Journal says. CEO Brian Moynihan recommended that the board not spin off Merrill Lynch because it had become profitable, and said getting rid of it could expose it to liquidity issues. Moynihan also rejected putting Countrywide in bankruptcy because of the legal implications. (Bonus appearance in the article from former First Union CEO Ed Crutchfield, who now seems to be questioning the big bank model. He told the WSJ that putting "gargantuan, completely unrelated businesses under one roof is probably not a good idea.")

Deposit insurance lobbying. Banks are lobbying Congress to extend an expanded deposit insurance program  created during the financial crisis that is now set to expire, Reuters reports. The Transaction Account Guarantee program insured all deposits in checking accounts, beyond the $250,000 limit insured by the FDIC. Community banks in particular are in favor of the program since it helped persuade large depositors to bring them their business.

Wells growing in Asia. Wells Fargo will increase it's staff in Asia by 10 percent in the next three years, Bloomberg reports, even as other banks are pulling back in the region. The bank's staff there focuses on corporate banking services to large Asian companies.

More Libor. British banking regulators are launching a review of how Libor is set, governed and regulated, as investigations into rate-rigging continue, The New York Times reports. The result could be criminalization of Libor manipulation.

Homeowners sue BofA over force-placed insurance

A Florida couple is suing Bank of America Corp. over its force-placed insurance practices, saying the lender engaged in "exploitative and self-dealing practices" to the detriment of its borrowers.

Buying various forms of homeowners insurance for borrowers whose coverage has lapsed is standard "if done properly," mortgage customers John and Jacqueline Totura said in the lawsuit filed in federal court in Charlotte Friday. But the Charlotte bank manipulated the market by entering into an exclusive relationship with Balboa Insurance, a unit Bank of America owned until last year, the suit said.

Balboa paid a kickback from each force-placed policy to the bank, resulting in insurance that cost more than comparable policies purchased on the open market, the homeowners said. That "benefited both BAC and Balboa substantially at the expense of BAC consumers," argued the Toturas, who are asking for unspecified damages.

A bank spokesman on Friday declined to comment. The lawsuit is the latest in a string of force-placed insurance claims against big banks. Wells Fargo was accused in a lawsuit this month of charging inflated premiums for force-placed insurance, for instance.

And earlier this year, a New York state financial services agency said it was investigating several big banks, including Wells and Bank of America, to see whether they fraudulently steered homeowners into overpriced insurance policies.

Is the banking industry's power waning?

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

Bank power. Despite rebounding quickly from the financial crisis, the banking industry's power is under siege now in the wake of the massive trading loss at JPMorgan Chase and the Libor-rigging scandal at Barclays, The New York Times' Floyd Norris says. The industry's' political clout may have peaked this spring.

Fed's 'nuclear options.' Bank of America Merrill Lynch economists laid out what they believe the Federal Reserve's "nuclear options" are to get the economy moving as the central bank faces increasing pressure to act, the Wall Street Journal reports. These include putting a ceiling on bond yields, weakening the dollar or trying to push inflation.

CFPB enforcement risk. Other banks are at risk of fines from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau after the new regulator took its first enforcement action against Capital One, Bloomberg says. Capital One was fined $210 million for what the CFPB termed deceptive, high-pressure sales tactics to sell credit monitoring and payment protection programs. But the contractors Capital One used to sell these products also do significant business with Bank of America and Wells Fargo, leaving them open to possible settlements.

Growth slowing. U.S. economic growth slowed in the second quarter, the Department of Commerce said Friday, increasing worries about the recovery, the Wall Street Journal reports. GDP grew at an annualized 1.5 percent, down from 2 percent growth in the first quarter.