Finance Space

Federal Reserve to Wall Street: The days of easy money — and, just maybe, easy profits — are numbered, Graham Bowley and Eric Dash report in The New York Times.

News on Thursday that the Fed would raise the interest rate that it charges banks for temporary loans was seen by lenders as a sign that their long, profitable period of ultralow rates was coming to an end.

The move suggested that policy makers believed the nation’s banks had healed enough to withdraw some of the extraordinary support that Washington put in place during the financial crisis. And, while all those bailouts stabilized the banking industry, it was low rates from the Fed that helped propel banks’ rapid recovery.

Bank of America Corp will not oppose U.S. President Barack Obama’s push to create a consumer finance-focused regulator, a company spokesman said on Tuesday.

The Charlotte, North Carolina-based bank will not actively lobby against, or for, Obama’s proposed Consumer Financial Protection Agency, company spokesman James Mahoney told Reuters in an interview.

The stance sets apart Bank of America, the largest U.S. bank, from a broad swath of the industry, which has vigorously opposed creation of the agency since it was proposed in July 2009.

The Consumer Finance Protection Agency’s mission of overseeing banks’ products and services for transparency and consumer fairness were principles Bank of America was already adopting, Mahoney said.

The U.S. Small Business Administration has introduced two new online courses to help small business owners with basic principles of finance and borrowing.

The new courses are:

* “Finance Primer: Guide to SBA’s Loan Guaranty Programs” gives an overview of the SBA’s loan programs and can help entrepreneurs avoid common mistakes, such as securing the wrong type of financing, miscalculating the amount of financing required and underestimating the cost of borrowed money.
* “How to Prepare a Loan Package” includes links to related information and to places where entrepreneurs can get direct support.