Bank channel

Banks in the forecasted path of Hurricane Sandy braced Sunday for the storm, while making plans to help their operations weather it without interruption.

Citigroup Inc. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. are among Wall Street firms planning to shift operations to other cities and have staff work from home as Hurricane Sandy’s arrival in New York forces evacuations.

Ascent Private Capital Management names two managing directors in Seattle area.

Paul Cummings will serve as regional managing director for the Northeast Region, overseeing asset management and other services in New York and Philadelphia.

Almost seven in 10 mass-affluent couples (69%) discuss their finances at least a few times a month. That’s more than what many spend talking about other topics, such as the election, work, sex, and even their kids.

Leaders of the largest banks are using third-quarter calls to discuss a reluctance to pursue bank acquisitions. The underlying message? Smaller banks are likely to spur the next big wave of consolidation.

Almost one in two consumers (47%) say they keep the majority of their assets with banks, up from 44% in 2011. Self-directed firms and full-service brokers, in contrast, had only 28% and 15% of the market, respectively.

Trustmark's company's earnings rose 2% from the second quarter and 9.5% from a year earlier, to $29.9 million. The Jackson, Miss., company said in a press release late Tuesday that higher revenue from insurance commissions.

Bank of America Corp., the lender that got a $5 billion boost from Warren Buffett last year, now has the “top capital” among peers and is capable of paying a bigger dividend, said Chief Executive Officer Brian T. Moynihan.

A tipping point is coming regarding anger and dissatisfaction over Dodd-Frank. But a new assessment of the regulatory landscape points a way for policymakers to get out of the mess.

The chief executive officer of JPMorgan Chase, Jamie Dimon, hosted a lunch with 75 New York business leaders in a bid to help to steer Washington away from the fiscal cliff and toward a budget compromise akin to Simpson-Bowles.

The acquisition of Rochdale Investment Management helped raise City National Corp.'s third-quarter income 44% from a year earlier to $59.8 million.

Federal regulators are reviewing banks' growth plans, particularly those that include third-party companies. To avoid excessive scrutiny, industry experts advise banks to proactively discuss such relationships with examiners.

A little more than two years after the Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform bill was signed into law, a prominent Washington think tank has convened a broad range of policy experts to examine the law, to the extent that it has been implemented, and produce a substantive set of recommendations for lawmakers to consider as they mull updates to improve the financial regulatory landscape.

Northern Trust, the nation's third-largest custody bank, said Wednesday that its third-quarter profit rose 4.9% from the same period last year, to $178.8 million, as improved asset quality and strong fee-income growth more than offset dips in interest income and foreign-exchange income.

The system now provides financial advisors with access to tax tools, account details and trading information.

The industry must work much harder to restore its reputation after this year's scandals, HSBC USA CEO Irene Dorner said Tuesday, in a speech that was part rally and part reprimand to bankers.

Bank of New York Mellon Corp., the world’s largest custody bank, said third-quarter earnings climbed a bigger-than-estimated 11 percent as rising stock prices helped expand customer assets.

The regional bank plans to substantially strengthen its western footprint with new advisors in Oregon, Washington, California and Nevada.

Bank of America Corp., the second- largest U.S. lender, said third-quarter profit dropped 95 percent on litigation expenses and an accounting charge tied to the firm’s debt.