BFCSA Blog

What Lurks in Bonds Tied to Subprime Autos Anyone’s Guess  By Matt Robinson, Sarah Mulholland and Jody Shenn    3 October 2014    http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-10-01/what-lurks-in-bonds-tied-to-subprime-autos-anyone-s-guess.html    The U.S. housing crisis laid bare an epidemic of fraud and sloppy paperwork on loans made to home buyers with spotty credit. For those who bought bonds backed by the mortgages, it fueled at least $250 billion of losses. Six years later, investors are snapping up a new crop of subprime bonds, this one backed by auto loans. Ratings companies are awarding top grades to the securities, and buyers have almost no way to determine the accuracy of the information they get about them. Now, the market’s drawing scrutiny as the U.S. Justice Department probes underwriting and disclosure practices and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission seeks to ensure investors get adequate information. “Investors are basically taking the issuer’s word that they follow certain procedures, and...

For 30 years, Australians have been calling for Banks to be brought to account and all their associated partners.  Now we critically need a ROYAL COMMISSION to allow all those Aussies who have been fleeced by Banks, Developer associates and all manner of UNSAFE FINANCE PRODUCTS being directly or indirectly promoted by Bankers.  The criminal activities by Bankers is well documented in so many Parliamentary Inquiries, as well as the devastating losses caused by the Bank Engineers, the manufacturers of faulty products and caused by ASIC AND APRA regulatory criminal negligence BECOME ACTIVELY INVOLVED FROM YOUR DESK OR LOUNGE CHAIR Get involved: Why? as one petitioner explains To prevent a banking collapse here in Australia because this would have a devastating effect on the population.   The future of our economy is dependent upon a Royal Commission.  MR DAVID MURRAY must recommend  ROYAL COMMISSION INTO BANKS AND ALL ASSOCIATED SUBSIDIARIES in the...

I'm 70, 3 years retired. 15 years ago I owned my own home and was a typical target for banks as a ARIP (asset rich income poor). I wanted to retire comfortably and fell for the ploy, "Why not use your home to generate more income?" By 2008 I had 5 investment properties on interest-only loans with a combined value of approx. $2m. The monthly loan costs were prohibitive; I was living frugally to save as much from my salary as possible to help cover the shortfall, but needing to use an extra line-of-credit, so "thoughtfully" pushed my way by the bank. The debt was rising and all the time I was assuming house prices would keep me afloat. During 2008 I realised how serious my mistake was.  After selling two properties at a loss and two more involving capital gains tax, I still have my own home, thankfully, and one,...

No-one should be trusting banks or their lawyers these days.  TRUST is gone and so is CONFIDENCE.  Here is the PM peddling along with the wonders of de-regulation, where its painfully obvious he should be talking up RE-REGULATION. It will come to RE-REGULATION PM Abbott.  Trust me - better than trusting the banks.  You cannot trust men (and lady) with money to make best decisions for the people of this nation.  Remember the Great Depression?  So many homeless, no jobs. Forget War Talk - we need you as PM to concentrate on back home here!!!!   WHITE COLLAR CRIME IS A KILLER......stress and depression is a killer. You need to have a bo-peep into what the banks are doing.  Joe Hockey hasn't a clue.  $1.6 Trillion in mortgages (43% toxic) and you cannot trust APRA figures because as APRA bods told me: "we get our figures and stats from the Banks."...

Inernational Monetary Fund warned us in 2003.  Five years before the UK/American GFC http://www.businessspectator.com.au/article/2014/6/13/australian-news/why-australia-floored-sky-high-house-prices Why Australia is floored by sky-high house prices Callam Pickering 13 Jun 2014 Was the International Monetary Fund right to question Australia’s housing market? Or does it simply not get that Australian property is ‘different’?  Unfortunately, it has a point. Our major banks, the government and the Reserve Bank of Australia have a lot to answer for. Australians take great pride in their property, which is understandable since we pay a bloody lot for it. Whenever our property market is questioned -- often by a foreigner -- our reaction is usually defensive.  Don’t they realise that we are ‘different’? Don’t they realise that we’re not subject to those pesky economic rules that bind everyone else? Unfortunately, the reality is that we’re not different. Sure, our cities have some unique characteristics -- coastal locations and great weather being...

http://www.dailyreckoning.com.au/its-not-like-asic-will-save-you/2013/10/31/ ASIC, the regulator of the Australian financial system (and also the regulator of financial publishers like us), is on the receiving end of some remarkable criticism. It’s remarkable, not because of its content, but because of who it’s coming from. Usually, the customers complain about how big business shafted them. But things are so bad at the corporate regulator that even big business is up in arms.  The Australian Financial Review‘s Patrick Durkin put the story together very well. Here are our favourite bits: ‘Accounting firm BDO pointed to a specific confidential investigation they had carried out and referred to ASIC into the misconduct of an auditor which was never examined.  ‘"Despite the extensive amount of work and costs involved in conducting the investigation, there would appear to have been no action taken by ASIC to investigate the matter," BDO national audit partner Tim Kendall said..........…judge and former head of...

  Thursday, 20 February 2014 21:49   DR Evan Jones, 20 February 2014 Below is a rejoinder to the NAB response to the submissions by Claire & Chris Priestley to the ASIC inquiry. The Senate Committee Secretariat readily put up the NAB response, a 3-page letter characterised by lies, dissembling and omissions.  My submitted rejoinder has now been sitting for 6 weeks, awaiting a decision regarding acceptability. (The Committee and Secretariat is currently at Inquiry hearings, at which one can guarantee that the subject of bank malpractice against SME/farmer customers and regulatory inaction will be ignored.) The Secretariat had merely to redact the names of NAB staffers and upload this rejoinder as readily as it uploaded the NAB response. Why the asymmetry of treatment?  * * * Senate Economics Committee Inquiry The performance of the Australian Securities and Investments Commission Submission No.2 (Dr) Evan Jones Honorary Associate (previously Associate Professor), Department...

Dear members We all know the BFCSA membership is over eleven hundred and each and everyone of us has been touched by the hand of bankster fraud but when you start reading the individual stories its nothing short of a tragedy and a travesty of justice.  We haven't lost our home yet but we came close some months when we had to use a Mastercard to meet loan repayments. I was working out payments such as utilities , insurances, bankster loan repayments etc twelve months in advance and even allowed for the two months of the year when we got three pension payments for the month, these two extra payments were used to pay back the Master card which covered the months we coudn't meet the full bankster repayments. The only reason we have a little breathing space at the moment is due to the record low interest rates but its...

The best warnings we as a support group can give is this:  Do not sign a Mortgage without writing to us via email and asking BFCSA about the perils of trusting any banker or lender or any broker as an agent of the Bank.  You think you can trust the banking system.......WRONG. Our own Prime Minister has yet to respond to this crisis.  He is saying he is worried about disability pensions being rorted.  Yes we would be too, but think of all those people who will now be forced on to welfare after saving for their retirement and now being conned by the Major Banks in Australia. Banksters will be watching the Australia Day celebrations drinking the best champagne from the 100th floor vantage spots and watching tennis and cricket this week from the overloaded, over indulged corporate boxes!  They will care diddly squat for their victims and families.  Next week its back to business and they will again be enjoying their very best favourite...

Dear members One of the advantages of being medically retired is we have time to spare, it wasn't planned that way but life doesn't run according to plans.We envisaged in retirement to do the grey nomad thing and travel around Australia by towing a van, we were financially secure and owned everything. Our plans would revolve around my health but we knew if any thing happened while travelling that I would be looked after being covered by DVA. We only invested because a work colleague who was getting spotter fee's unbeknown to us, steered a broker our way, he played the old you can't help your kids physically but financially you have equity locked up in your home not working for you, and like the rest of you the rest is history we had fallen for the spiel. The internet has opened up a whole new world of information to us,...

In response to comment on SMH 24 October, 2013  I felt I should explain the "warranted panic, for our Banking Industry."  The fraudulent loans are only a sample of the overall market of $57 Billion worth of Lo Doc loans.  The average loans with buffers and top ups by greedy banks now average out at $600K per loan.  But let us lower it to say half a million dollars per loan.  It means we have uncovered $400 million dollar fraud cases so far and not one clean loan amongst them.  These loans were all processed by Skippy the Computer with credit assessors ticking boxes, phoning no-one, verifying nothing other than an A1 credit rating (ie mostly pensioners and low income families enjoy an A1).  In fact insiders tell us that no loan was rejected as long as the hapless victims had an asset - their only asset - their home: ARIPs.......asset rich and...