WASHINGTON, D.C. — America’s presidential campaign is already well under way. The election is not until November 2016, and very few candidates have formally thrown their hats into the ring, but the competition to promote and develop ideas — both behind closed doors and publicly — is in full swing.

Earlier this month, Citigroup C, -0.20%  took advantage of this formative political moment by seizing an opportunity to score a tactical victory — but one that amounts to a strategic blunder. Using legislative language apparently drafted by Citigroup’s own lobbyists, the firm successfully pressed for the repeal of some of the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial reforms. The provision was then passed after it was attached to a last-minute spending bill, a tactic that ensured little debate in the House of Representatives and none at all in the Senate.

At a stroke, Citigroup executives demonstrated both their continued political clout in…

Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp (SMBC) will buy Citigroup Inc’s (>> Citigroup Inc) Japanese retail banking operations in October for about 40 billion yen ($330 million), people with knowledge of the matter said on Wednesday.

The Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group Inc (>> Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group, Inc.) unit will announce the long-awaited purchase on Thursday, the sources said.

Citi’s Japan consumer banking business has been hurt by weak loan demand and falling interest margins in a market where the U.S.-based lender has operated for over 100 years.

Spokesmen for the two banks declined to comment on the deal.

Read on.

Now that the dust is beginning to settle on the $150 million settlement between Ocwen Financial (OCN) and the New York Department of Financial Services, the company has unveiled its plans for the future.

First and foremost, the company will be without departing chairman William Erbey, who was forced to resign as part of the NYDFS settlement. But in a conference call with investors, Ocwen Chief Executive Officer Ron Faris revealed Ocwen’s four-part plan for the future and said that Erbey’s departure isn’t the only big change for the nonbank.

Faris told investors that Ocwen is planning to exit agency servicing. “We are going to focus our servicing business primarily on non-agency servicing,” Faris said.

Faris said that Ocwen plans to sell off its entire portfolio of agency servicing. “We estimate the difference between our $1.1 billion book value and fair value of our agency MSRs is between $400…

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Just back from Orlando where I had a 4 hour trial scheduled for five minutes. Of course nobody except the court knew that. Needless to say the trip to Orlando was a bust. Neither counsel — Plaintiff and Defendant — was pleased. The system is badly in need of change. Now we are told that it might be 2016 until we get a judge who can give us 4 hours.

Meanwhile, the Orlando Sentinel reports that Florida is back to #1 in foreclosures, even though major “lenders” are giving people a “break” from wrongful foreclosures by not pursuing evictions during the holidays. see http://www.orlandosentinel.com/business/os-orlando-foreclosures-december-20141210-story.html

But in the meanwhile, BOA and Ocwen has been cited for not following the rules of the “settlements” that stopped criminal and civil prosecutions from the US Department of Justice. see BOA Fails tests: They still don’t…

FDIC HAS ALREADY PAID $1 BILLION TO ONEWEST, ESTIMATES IT WILL PAY $1.4 BILLION MORE

December 16, 2014- Pasadena, CA: At a press conference today, LA community leaders will release new data that has not previously been shared with the public about the amount of money the FDIC has paid to OneWest Bank under two controversial shared loss agreements. OneWest is part of a proposed, Too Big To Fail bank merger with CIT Group, a merger that over fifty organizations are opposing.

After the CEO of the bank refused to disclose how much money the bank received from the FDIC, the California Reinvestment Coalition (CRC) filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with the FDIC. According to data provided to CRC, the FDIC has already paid out over one billion dollars ($1,028,404,397) to OneWest Bank. The FDIC estimates it will pay out an additional $1.4 billion to OneWest…

Rogan v. U.S. Bank, N.A. (In re Partin), 517 B.R. 770 (Bankr. E.D. Ky. 2014) –

A chapter 7 trustee sought to avoid mortgages on three properties using his “strong arm” powers, arguing that they were improperly recorded and thus did not provide constructive notice to a purchaser or lien creditor.

Liberty Blitzkrieg blog:

Agin v. Dookhan (In re Hultin), 516 B.R. 190 (Bankr. D. Mass. 2014) –

A chapter 7 trustee sought to avoid a transfer of the debtor’s real property using his “strong arm” powers based on an argument that the deed conveying the property did not provide constructive notice since it was not properly indexed in the real estate records.

WASHINGTON – On its face, the House vote late Thursday to approve a spending bill that included an unrelated provision written by Citigroup was a big legislative victory for the bank and its fellow Wall Street behemoths.

Yet it’s also a victory that may soon come to haunt the largest institutions.

What they won was the repeal of a Dodd-Frank Act provision that requires them to push out a portion of their derivatives business into subsidiaries. Big banks fought against its inclusion in the 2010 financial reform law and have been steadily fighting to repeal it ever since. The spending bill is expected to pass the Senate in the coming days.

But in finally getting what they wanted, big banks also thrust themselves back into the limelight in the worst possible way, simultaneously reminding the public of their role in causing the financial crisis and in their continuing influence over…