Finance Space

People will start seeing important changes on their credit card statements that could result in better debt management skills in the long term for many of them.

Under the terms of the federal Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility and Disclosure Act, lenders must now provide people with information on their monthly statements about how long it would take to pay down their total balance by just making minimum payments. Related information on the statements will show consumers how much their monthly payments would have to be in order to pay down a balance in three years.

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said he expects Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke will win a second term, indicating enough Republicans will join Democrats in backing the central banker.

“He’s going to have bipartisan support in the Senate, and I would anticipate he will be confirmed,” McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, said today on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” McConnell, 67, declined to say how he would personally vote.

Three White House officials also said today that they’re confident Bernanke will be approved. The Fed chief’s confirmation was less assured on Jan. 22 when the two top Senate Democrats signaled they were undecided and other Democrats announced their opposition.

Following is a reformatted version of the White House transcript released today of President Barack Obama’s remarks calling for restrictions on the size and scope of financial institutions:

Good morning, everybody. I just had a very productive meeting with two members of my Economic Recovery Advisory Board: Paul Volcker, who’s the former chair of the Federal Reserve Board; and Bill Donaldson, previously the head of the SEC. And I deeply appreciate the counsel of these two leaders and the board that they’ve offered as we have dealt with a broad array of very difficult economic challenges.

RBC Capital Markets appointed Blair Fleming as head of U.S. investment banking to help lead an expansion of its business outside Canada.

Fleming, 48, oversees corporate finance industry groups, mergers and acquisitions, leveraged finance and restructuring in the U.S. with the new role, the Toronto-based bank said today in a statement. Fleming, who joined RBC in 1986, is based in New York.

RBC Capital Markets has been expanding its U.S. business, hiring more than 100 senior bankers in the past year and adding new industry expertise. The investment banking unit of Toronto- based Royal Bank of Canada, the country’s largest bank by assets, created U.S. groups for transportation and restructuring.

While President Barack Obama counts on the populist appeal of a plan to tax the biggest financial firms, his idea already is being buffeted by political headwinds.

Many Democrats remained silent about the plan Obama announced yesterday. Others, such as Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus of Montana, were noncommittal in their reaction. And some of Obama’s fellow Democrats expressed opposition.

“I just don’t think the financial services industry is a piggy bank that government can dip into anytime it needs to solve its budget problems,” said Representative Michael McMahon, a Democrat who represents parts of New York City.

The cost to protect against defaults on U.S. corporate bonds declined to the lowest in more than two years as investors wager that earnings will beat analysts’ expectations and the global default rate fell for the first time in two years.

Credit-default swaps on the Markit CDX North America Investment-Grade Index Series 13, which is linked to 125 companies and used to speculate on creditworthiness or to hedge against losses, fell 1.5 basis point to a mid-price of 75.75 basis points as of 4:09 p.m. in New York, according to Phoenix Partners Group. The index is trading at the lowest level since Dec. 14, 2007, when it was 75.2 basis points, according to CMA DataVision prices.

The dollar posted its biggest weekly loss since November versus the currencies of major U.S. trading partners as an unexpected drop in jobs boosted speculation that the Federal Reserve may extend stimulus measures.

Sterling was the only major currency to fall against the dollar this week as Prime Minister Gordon Brown clashed with the Conservative opposition on the U.K.’s budget deficit. The greenback slid from a four-month high against the yen on the prospects for the world’s largest economy. A report next week is forecast to show U.S. retail sales grew at a slower pace.

Bank of America Corp. Chief Executive Officer Brian T. Moynihan, in his first week leading the largest U.S. lender, said the recession’s impact is fading and the bank’s biggest acquisitions are over, allowing him to focus on rebuilding relationships with customers.

“The worst is behind us in the sense of credit,” Moynihan, 50, said today during an interview on Bloomberg Television in Raleigh, North Carolina. “As an industry, we over-lent and customers over-borrowed, and that led to a fairly significant bubble,” he said. “If you could rewind the clock, you wouldn’t do those things again.”