Bank Of America, Jp Morgan Chase | featured news

The institution is accelerating its cost-cutting strategy, planning to pare its operations so much that it will lose its spot as the nation’s largest bank employer, falling behind the likes of JP Morgan Chase, Wells Fargo and Citigroup.

Moody's Investors Service lowered the credit ratings of 15 major banks Thursday, including Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs, saying their long-term prospects for profitability and growth are shrinking. The ratings agency said it was especially concerned about banks with significant financial markets businesses because those markets have become so volatile. Some of the largest European banks were also downgraded, including Barclays, Deutsche Bank and HSBC.

The Federal Reserve also said on Tuesday that JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, U.S. Bancorp and others could raise dividends or buy back stock.

Bank of America Corp. is scrapping its plan to charge a $5 monthly debit card fee. The bank's decision to drop the fee came after a roar of customer outrage in recent weeks over the fee. Other major banks, including JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Wells Fargo & Co., already canceled tests of similar debit card fees last week.

JPMorgan Chase & Co and Bank of America Corp were hit with new lawsuits by investors seeking to recover losses on $4.5 billion of soured mortgage debt, expanding the litigation targeting the two largest U.S. banks.

Three of the nation's four largest banks are launching a system that lets customers transfer money from their checking accounts using only a mobile number or e-mail address.

Jim Cramer got really angry on CNBC yesterday. The LinkedIn (LNKD) IPO got him in a tizzy. Why? Because he said that the underwriters for the offering (Morgan Stanley (MS), B of A Merrill (BAC), and JP Morgan Chase (JPM)) decided to play the old “dot com” games of only releasing an artificially small amount of shares on the market, in hopes of creating a feeding frenzy.