GLG News by Online Payment Experts

Washington Mutual (WaMu) cut a deal with TPG and other investors for a $7 billion capital injection by issuing common stock and preferred convertible stock. In addition, 1st quarter write offs of $3.5 billion contributed to an estimated first quarter loss of $1.1 billion. Clearly WaMu needs capital,...

Discover continues to play a relatively weak hand well against American Express, MasterCard and Visa. In Diners Club it acquired a meaningful international acceptance network, increased visibility and volume for its underappreciated network business, and added a payment brand decidedly different from...

Since the passage of the Check 21 Act in October 2004, significant changes have occurred in traditional check processing. Banks, credit unions, image networks and the Federal Reserve are working to build the infrastructure to transition banks and credit unions to 100% electronic check imaging/exchange...

CIT Group drew down emergency credit lines totaling $7.3 billion in March 2008, after being cut off from customary sources of cash, forcing CIT to scrap its government-backed student loan program on 4.3.08. Due to its weak position, CIT may be a prime takeover target. The lack of investor demand has...

Writedowns at global banks has surpassed $291 billion and the "writedown" meter continues to tick and could reach $460 billion or as high as $1.2 trillion by year-end 2008. U.S. financial institutions will account for about 40% of losses. Credit losses has prompted leveraged institutions to raise new...

National City Corporation (NCC) share price was up 6% on 4.3.08 on news that crosstown rival KeyCorp and cross-state Fifth Third BanCorp may be courting NCC for a possible merger and/or acquisition, however, this could be a bad time to sell due to current market conditions. NCC may need to do some additional...

At UBS's Annual Shareholders Meeting the topics of discussion included UBS's $19 billion writedown, its $14.8 billion rights issue to raise capital and the replacement of Chairman Ospel by UBS's current Legal Counsel, Peter Kurer. UBS's huge bet on subprime investments has led to the largest bank writedown...

Congress is on the brink of causing enormous damage to the card payments industry. The “Credit Card Fair Fee Act of 2008” would convert it into a regulated public utility. Small merchants’ access to MasterCard and Visa products would be curbed. Cardholders would pay more. And, card issuers, the networks...

Sovereign Wealth Funds (SWF) grew by 18% in 2007, with a global share of 36% and early projections suggest SWFs could grow to $5 trillion by 2010. In 2007, SWFs invested $49 billion in M&A deals, which is an increase of 165%. Russia, Asia and the Middle East has played a key role in bailing out...

The world’s largest consumer finance story GE Consumer Finance (GCF) is entering the final chapter. The first two morsels of GCF’s $175 billion assets spread across 50 countries have just been sold. The next two years will see a feeding frenzy as FIs acquire bits of GCF, bulking up in particular markets,...