Starting July 1, customers will decide whether or not they want to be slapped with high-interest overdraft charges when making a debit purchase or ATM withdrawal. While it will save consumers billions of dollars, be aware that your bank might look for other ways to make up its lost revenue.

John Perkins' 'Confessions of an Economic Hit Man' details his self-proclaimed journey across the globe as an "economic hit man." (Daniel Hom/MEDILL)

With bank earnings season just passed, we now have a wealth of information to gauge the financial health of banks for the fourth-quarter of 2009. So pulling information from the income and cash-flow statements, we can see see how several bank holding companies in the Chicago area stack up. We’ll focus on JP Morgan Chase & Co., which is a New York-based megabank with a large Chicago presence; Lake Forest-based Wintrust Financial Corp.; Itasca-based First Midwest Banc Holdings Inc; and Melrose Park-based Midwest Banc Holdings Inc. (The reason Chase is thrown in the mix is to see how the smaller- and medium-sized bank holding companies compare.)

Andrew Ross Sorkin speaks to Chicago audience Feb. 9. Photo by Chris Guillen

It was Tuesday evening in Chicago, and though you may have watched him co-host CNBC’s Squawk Box from New York that same morning, there was Andrew Ross Sorkin giving a talk about Wall Street and his new book, “Too [...]

BY ALICE TRUONG – MEDILL NEWS SERVICE

Is money from Bank of America or Goldman Sachs Group Inc., likely to blur Sen. Christopher Dodd‘s judgment as chairman of the Senate Banking Committee?

We’re happy to introduce a new weekly podcast show – Money Talks. Every week we will speak to experts in the fields of business and economics to try and simplify complex issues in the financial world. This week Joseph Freeman and Siddhartha Vaidyanathan spoke to Dave Kansas, contributing editor at the Wall Street [...]

Sheila Bair, FDIC Chairman (New American Foundation/FLICKR)

BY HANNAH KOKJOHN – MEDILL NEWS SERVICE

Too big to fail? Not if Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Chairman Sheila Bair gets her way.

At the 45th Annual Bank Structure and Competition Conference in Chicago on Thursday, Bair advocated reforming the FDIC’s systemic risk program as the best way [...]

Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke/Flickr

BY KATE SHELLNUTT – MEDILL NEWS SERVICE

Unsurprisingly, first question to Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke following his keynote address at the Bank Structure and Competition Conference was about this week’s catchphrase, “stress tests.”

After declining to reveal the results of the Fed’s evaluation of the country’s biggest financial institutions [...]

 Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke/Flickr

BY DEB WEINSTEIN — MEDILL NEWS SERVICE

Speaking via satellite to an audience of over 200 at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago’s annual Bank Structure and Competition conference, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke outlined what he called “lessons of the crisis.”

The major lesson: Oversight [...]

Are stadiums with bank naming rights going to end up like Enron Field?

BY JOHN TEMPLON – MEDILL NEWS SERVICE

Maybe the upcoming bank bailout hearings should be held at a sports stadium instead of in Washington, D.C.

On Feb. 11, top executives from the nine U.S. banks and financial companies that have received federal [...]