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The banking industry's effort to compensate for lost overdraft-fee income by phasing out free checking has hit a roadblock.

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration proposed Monday to raise the required level of reserves at the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. to more than $80 billion — a move that would require banks to pony up a huge amount of money.

$30 billion initiative would be separate from Tarp

Financial Network, Primevest and Multi-Financial score key technology and compliance funding in Marron deal.

Based on the strong performance Putnam Investments’ funds delivered across a wide variety of asset types in 2008, the annual Lipper/Barron’s Fund Families Survey has selected Putnam as the No. 1 mutual fund family of 61 offerings.

Advisor confidence in the economy and the stock market rose in January, according to Rydex SGI AdvisorBenchmarking.

Macquarie Group has launched the Macquarie Mexican Infrastructure Fund, with approximately $5.2 billion in initial commitments from Mexican pension funds, Macquarie and Mexico’s National Infrastructure Fund, the latter of which, as a cornerstone investor in the fund, has made an initial commitment of $1.04 billion to $3 billion.

Waddell & Reed earned $33.3 million, or 39 cents a share, in the fourth quarter, an impressive turnaround from the $730,000, or 1 cent a share, it lost in the last quarter of 2008.

After plummeting 46.63% in 2008, real estate mutual funds outpaced the S&P 500 by seven percentage points in 2009, delivering an average of 30.34%. This year, however, managers of these funds expect only modest, single-digit gains.

Coming off a rough week in the stock market, industry economists look at the status of the global recovery—and the risks and opportunities that lie ahead…commentary from T. Rowe Price, Standard and Poor’s and GE Asset Management, plus this week’s report and corporate earnings calendar.

Affiliated Managers Group Inc. [AMG] announced Monday it bought a stake in a London fund manager as the Boston company continues to look to expand internationally.

The Rydex SGI AdvisorBenchmarking rose 3% to 109.68 from a month earlier. This is a 27% improvement from where the index stood a year ago.

Despite the trend over the past three years at many large money managers to divest and focus on core businesses, Invesco Ltd. retained its trust unit, Atlantic Trust. And the decision continues to pay handsome dividends.

To help the middle-class save for retirement, President Obama may have also given a boost to the annuities sector.

Bank of America's Merrill Lynch Wealth Management has launched a new U.S. marketing campaign, "help2retire___," to illustrate individuals' evolving retirement priorities and personal aspirations. Budgeted at $20 million, it launched last Monday and is scheduled to run through the end of April on broadcast network and national cable TV, as well as print and online consumer and trade magazines, including sister publication Financial Planning.

Russell Hires Polisson To Head Global ETFs

NEW YORK -- Online retirement calculators are usually so confusing or overwhelming that the average plan participant logs in, checks their account balance and then logs off without making any changes. Putnam Investments has developed a new retirement income twist it hopes will resonate with investors, plan sponsors and financial advisers.

After the recent massive meltdown, it's no surprise that 81% of registered investment advisory firms and 79% of brokers and advisers now believe that traditional asset allocation relying on stocks, bonds and cash provides insufficient portfolio diversification.

Bill Would Require Funds to Reveal Proxies

Long-term mutual funds ended the week of Jan. 20 with net inflows of $13.18 billion, according to the Investment Company Institute. This brings the sales streak to 45 straight weeks totaling $454 billion.