HSBC reaches $470M deal with US, states over banking abuses

[PoliticAverse]

Source: Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — Banking giant HSBC has reached a $470 million settlement with the federal government and nearly all states over mortgage lending and foreclosure abuses that officials say helped intensify the country's economic meltdown, the Justice Department announced Friday.

The agreement requires the bank to pay $100 million and to provide an additional $370 million in consumer relief to borrowers and homeowners, including by reducing mortgage interest rates as well as the principal on mortgages for homeowners who are at risk of default.

The deal also requires the bank to improve standards for how it services loans and handles foreclosures.

Officials say those changes are intended to discourage past banking practices, such as robosigning and poor-quality loans, that exacerbated a financial crisis starting in 2007 in which millions of Americans lost their homes to foreclosure. HSBC had already agreed in a separate 2013 deal with Federal Reserve and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency to pay $249 million to settle federal complaints that its U.S. division wrongfully foreclosed on homeowners who should have been allowed to stay in their homes.

Read more: http://bigstory.ap.org/article/71647e7efb92440abbba66e2f7944e01/hsbc-reaches-470m-deal-us-states-over-banking-abuses

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Press Release from the US Department of Justice:
http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-reaches-470-million-joint-state-federal-settlement-hsbc-address-mortgage

[midnight]

1. kick

[Dems to Win]

2. And nobody goes to jail

This is why there is such a strong anti-Establishment mood in the country.

[wordpix]

7. "intended to discourage past banking practices"---send those responsible to JAIL!

to discourage the next banksters from doing same

[SwankyXomb]

3. What they should be forced to do

in addition to massive fines of at least 100x these amounts and jail time for every one of the executives, is that they issue a free and clear title to every family they screwed out of their homes.

[peacebird]

6. Now THAT would put an end to the banking abuses right quick! Seriously.

[silvershadow]

4. A slap on the wrist. We should have taken the company into receivership.

Actually, we should have forced them to make the victims of their fraud/scam whole. I am one. HSBC took me for $70k in their scheme.

[wordpix]

8. and further, this $ comes from the corp,. and not out of the perps' pockets

so let's say you have $ invested in financial stocks as a worker and small time investor with a 401K or something similar. Now YOU, the worker, will be paying from HSBC's coffers, and not the criminals who got rich off these schemes. Your investment will be worth much less so YOU, the worker, are penalized while the bigshot 1%ers get off free.

[Unknown Beatle]

5. That's it? $470 million?

FUCK!

It's right there in black and white: "millions of Americans lost their homes to foreclosure". Let's say it's only one million that lost their homes to illegal foreclosure involving HSBC.

$470,000,000 divided by 1,000,000 people that lost their homes illegally = $470.00

That's it, just four hundred seventy dollars per lost home. That's a minuscule amount, that's not even a slap on the wrist, it's a handshake and a wink.

HSBC took in billions of dollars in this scheme and they only get fined a tiny fraction.

Another lie to manipulate the gullible public: "Officials say those changes are intended to discourage past banking practices". Yeah right! Might as well just tell them to "cut it out".

Obama is owned by wall st and his DOJ hires prove it.

We need Bernie and we need him bad.

[forest444]

9. That's the history of HSBC in a nutshell.

Heinous economic crimes, with little to no accountability. They were, after all, established as Queen Victoria's opium money laundromat - an activity that continues to line their pockets, probably more than ever.