Financial Biz Review: Bank of America’s BIG DEAL, Jamie Dimon on The Hill

The Royal Bank of Scotland (NYSE:RBS), in the face of the newly announced stimulus, intends to lay off an additional 600 employees, mostly from the financial planning unit which faces new rules that require a more highly qualified personnel. The downsize will bring the total number of terminations since its bailout in 2008 to 36,000, in a company that is 82 percent government owned.

The Fed is extending the time in which MetLife (NYSE:MET) must file a new capital plan by three and one half months (to September 30th). Met is currently divesting assets to influence the oversight, while the Fed has rejected its attempts at raising the dividend, or recommencing buybacks. The firm’s dividend seems to be stuck at 74 cents, which its rival Prudential (NYSE:PFK) has raised its own three times since 2008.

Earnings Report: Discover Financial Earnings: Snaps Strong Streak with Profit Drop.

Bank of America (NYSE:BAC) is in talks with the Swiss firm Julius Baer about divesting Merrill Lynch’s non-U.S. wealth management operations to the latter. Such a move (which might be worth up to $2 billion) would follow the current trend of the big banks selling off their assets for capital. For its part, Julius Baer says that “Given the early stage of these discussions, the outcome is entirely open.”.

On a day in which Jamie Dimon again testifies before a Congressional committee, JPMorgan (NYSE:JPM) is being investigated by the SEC as to whether the company misled investors in its first quarter statement by not disclosing it had altered how it measured risk, said the agency Chairwoman Mary Schapiro to a House committee. It seems that Dimon might have ignited this one himself in a conference call, when he dismissed reports of increased risk as a “tempest in a teapot”.

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