In recent years, the traditional business of banks--making long-term loans and funding them by issuing short--dated deposits-has declined. This development has raised concerns that more banks will fail or be forced to assume greater risk to remain profitable. This article first examines the...

This issue of Banking and Community Perspectives explores the features and limitations of two of the existing products and services for the financially underserved--prepaid cards and small-dollar loans.

Legislative and regulatory actions taken in response to the financial turmoil that occurred between 2007-2009 expanded the extent to which financial institution liabilities were protected by federal government guarantees, i.e., these actions expanded the federal financial safety net. How large...

The passage of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act sparked discussion of creating a systematic code that uniquely identifies an entity. This code is commonly referred to as a legal entity identifier (LEI). The information that is collected to accompany and describe the...

The Chicago Fed’s Supervision and Regulation Department, in conjunction with DePaul University’s Center for Financial Services, sponsored its fourth annual Financial Institution Risk Management Conference on April 11–12, 2011. In addition to discussions about risk management, this year’s...

Bankers may find census and survey data useful when exploring reaching the unbanked and underbanked in their communities.

The authors examine investors' reactions to announcements of large seasoned equity offerings (SEOs) by U.S. financial institutions (FIs) from 2000 to 2009. These offerings include market infusions as well as injections of government capital under the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). The...