We did our PPP loan for our agency through a small regional bank that bent over backwards to help local businesses understand the legislation and apply on time. The bank paid a bunch of salaries to be able to do this. It’s completely reasonable that they earned a small, disclosed-in-advance fee from our loan to pay for those operations.
Small business rescue earned banks $10B in fees
121–130 of 342 posts
Re: Small business rescue earned banks $10B in fees
#122No surprise here. Yes, these programs will help out small businesses. But, the rich need their cut first. Hopefully investigative journalists will be able to find the corruption/fraud in a few years.
> But, the rich need their cut first.
Everyone needs their cut to do work...
Re: Small business rescue earned banks $10B in fees
#123Re: Small business rescue earned banks $10B in fees
#124Earlier quoted context omitted.
Post Bank formed from Deutsche Bank. Which was made infamous for loaning Donald Trump loads of money on highly questionable terms.
No, Post Bank was sold to Deutsche Bank. It was created by the Deutsche Post, who then spun it off, funneled a lot of their branches into it (so you have bank offices that also rent out a desk to the Post) and sold it to Deutsche Bank.
I looked at the wikipedia post for Post Bank and it is really confusing. So on re-reading I see:
1990 Postbank is created from Duetsche Post breaking up.
1999 Deutsche Post takes back Postbank.
2004 Deutsche Bank sells it's transaction bank to Postbank.
2012 Deutsche Bank acquires Postbank.
Re: Small business rescue earned banks $10B in fees
#125Gotta ask whether the banking system makes sense in its current form. - Part of it is actually a utility. Payments, sending money from one place to another, making sure there's an account at the other end of that number. Everyone needs this, yet being a huge international network there isn't a whole lot that one bank offers that another cannot. - Part of it is deciding who to lend money to. Makes sense for the bank t…
> What if we had the central bank give everyone an account Single point of failure. Single point of power seizure. Single point of abuse for policy/NSA/FBI/DEA/BATF/CIA. As an alternative: Each bank must speak a common language for transactions as part of their charter, aka "ACH". The task to accomplish what you wish simply becomes "Improve ACH to realtime, rather than batch" and a bunch of our problems go away. Furt…
It's not a single point of failure, it's giving people the option to not bank through a private bank.
Private banks already get a bank account with the government (the Central Bank), why shouldn't individuals have that same option?
Re: Small business rescue earned banks $10B in fees
#126Anytime needed stimulus goes through banks, don't be surprised if it never makes it out of said bank or to the intended locations as they are self-preservation first as expected. Banks should help the river and get access to the flow, they shouldn't be a dam that holds back the flow, filtering only for their customers or large companies masquerading as "small business". Had policy sent the money directly to companies…
Can someone who downvoted this explain why you did so?
Where do you see the upvote/downvote counts on HN?
Re: Small business rescue earned banks $10B in fees
#127Earlier quoted context omitted.
Really? You mean, even an existing (approved) bank can't just one day decide to stop lending and revert to narrow functions?
They could, but would see a reduction in income by doing so, therefore an unlikely occurrence. I don’t see many banks willingly walk away from low risk income.
Yes, but you were saying that the impediment was a legal one. I'm asking if that's really true, given that a(n approved) bank can just elect not to provide some services. Surely that can't be illegal.
Re: Small business rescue earned banks $10B in fees
#128The thing here is the bank isn’t taking any risk here. All the loans are guaranteed by the government. So banks are really just a middle man that is transferring money from the SBA to a small business’s bank account and taking on zero credit risk. The government has the ability to send funds directly to people obviously...that’s how they are sending the stimulus checks and send tax refunds. Banks are basically being…
Everyone said they weren't taking any risk, but all the money was distributed and now they're getting sued by people who didn't get some.
Re: Small business rescue earned banks $10B in fees
#129Earlier quoted context omitted.
We have the US Digital Service [1] and 18F [2]. We (US citizens) should demand Congress to provide them the authority to deliver the modernization required to implement such infrastructure. Use Login.gov [3] to provide for digital identity management of these accounts. Perform in person KYC using USPS and DHS/CBP branches, and identity proofing online using traditional service providers (IRS already does this for you…
Would it be feasable for the government to acquire a mobile first bank and graft it onto the post office? Either chime, bankmobile, moven, or simple. Is it a space the government wants to compete against Apple and Google? If every mobile phone in the country comes with a free integrated banking service, how do you compete? Would the government better serve by using its resources to regulate interoperability and compa…
It's not politically feasible. The Republicans have been trying to kill off the USPS for decades now, and would torpedo any effort to expand it's scope in a way that that the USPS might be competent at.
Re: Small business rescue earned banks $10B in fees
#130Larger customers will have relationship managers at the bank who guide them through the process step by step. Their customers likely even have their cell phone number so communication is good and low friction. With the support of accountants and lawyers who will have all information available to hand, I'm sure the application was a breeze.
The current crisis has been a real eye opener. Our entire government and economic system is bailing out corporations and preserving the wealth of asset owners at the expense of taxpayers and society. This should be a perfect opportunity for smaller companies to step in and win business from corporates who have engaged in monopolistic practices for years and engaged in excess risk taking. But that isn't being allowed to happen because corporates are judged as too big to fail. I find this whole system intolerable.
It feels like we need to add more restrictions against corporates. Restrict their ability grow via M&A, restrict executive compensation to a multiple of median income and stop them growing too large. I say this as a capitalist.