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JPMorgan Restricts New Student Lending to Bank Customers - (www.bloomberg.com) JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM), the largest U.S. bank, will stop providing private student loans to people who aren’t customers of the company beginning July 1. “The private student-loan market has continued to decline and government programs have expanded to help more students and their families,” Steve O’Halloran, a spokesman for the New York-based bank, said today in an e-mail. Customers must have a Chase deposit, loan or credit-card relationship to apply, he said. The company will continue to service existing education loans and work with financial aid offices at schools to certify loans for students, he said. The American Banker reported the bank’s decision on March 30. JPMorgan has been paring back student loans, which comprise a small part of the estimated $1 trillion market and the company’s $2.27 trillion balance sheet. The student-lending portfolio shrank 15 percent since 2009 to $13.4 billion as of Dec. 31 as bad debts almost doubled. Uncollectible loans climbed 72 percent since 2009 to $434 million last year, according to the bank.
T. BOONE PICKENS: 'I've Lost My A** In The Wind Business' - (www.businessinsider.com) Alternative energy sure is risky. Energy tycoon T. Boone Pickens, the chairman of BP Capital Management and author of his namesake plan for U.S. energy independence "The Pickens Plan", said on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" that he "lost his ass in the [wind] business." [via Newsbusters] Watch the video (in the attached link - around the 7:40 mark of the video.)
Analysis: Investors run scared of Spain's battered banks - (www.reuters.com) Spain's banks are fast joining the ranks of the most unloved in Europe just as many need to raise capital urgently, deserted by investors who believe the country is on the brink of a recession that many lenders will not survive. The government has ruled out more state aid for a sector that comprises a motley mix of international lenders and heavily indebted local savings banks. That leaves two options: raising private capital or turning to the EU for bailout funds. Prospects for a private sector solution are poor. Nothing on the horizon looks likely to persuade foreign fund managers to invest, such is the fear of the banks' growing bad loans, their holdings of shaky sovereign debt and the worsening economy.
Rajoy Says Spain Future at Stake as Debt Crisis Persists - (www.bloomberg.com) Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy said Spain’s future is on the line in its battle to tame surging bond yields, as the head of the nation’s second-largest region proposed handing back powers to the government to cut costs. With Spanish bonds trading closer to levels that prompted Greece, Ireland and Portugal to seek European bailouts, Rajoy will address lawmakers of his People’s Party today to explain the deepest budget cuts in three decades. The prime minister will speak at 1 p.m. in Madrid. “Without a doubt, a good part of Spain’s future is at stake,” Rajoy told senators yesterday, as he urged regional governments to contribute to spending cuts. “The problem is that the markets can lend or decide not to lend.”
Coeure Suggests ECB Could Restart Bond Purchases for Spain - (www.bloomberg.com) European Central Bank Executive Board member Benoit Coeure triggered speculation that the bank will revive its bond-purchase program to lower Spain’s borrowing costs as the region’s debt crisis threatens to boil over again. Spanish “market conditions are not justified,” Coeure, who heads the ECB’s market operations division, said at an event in Paris today. “Will the ECB intervene? We have an instrument, the securities markets program, which hasn’t been used recently but it still exists.” The euro rose and Spanish bond yields declined as Coeure’s comments reassured investors that the ECB will act again if needed to stem the crisis. With Spain’s three-month-old government struggling to reduce the budget deficit and crack down on overspending by regional administrations, borrowing costs have surged, nearing the levels that precipitated bailouts for Greece, Portugal and Ireland.
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