| AT&T offers mobile banking to Wachovia customers
AT&T Inc. is branching out into the mobile-banking business, the company said Tuesday. San Antonio-based AT&T (NYSE: T - News) has formed a new partnership with Charlotte, N.C.-based Wachovia Corp. (NYSE: WB - News), mobile-banking payment provider Firethorn Holdings LLC and CheckFree Corp. (NASDAQ: CKFR - News), both based in Atlanta. .
For those 50 and older, health insurance can be hard to come by
Kent Odell exercises six times a week and eats healthy foods. He is a lean 6-foot-2 and 190 pounds and says he has no known medical conditions. His blood pressure is low, and his cholesterol clocks in well below the recommended level. But Odell is having trouble getting individual health insurance. Kaiser Permanente rejected Odell for coverage because he used to smoke, even though he quit 16 years ago. But the Benicia man thinks the reason for the denial has more to do with a number over which he has no control: his age. Odell is 56, too young for Medicare but a prime age to start developing health problems. "I know how the numbers work. Statistically speaking ... they're going to spend less on a 26-year-old than they're going to spend on a 56-year-old," Odell said.
Local Dairy Queen in business almost 10 years
DO YOU KNOW is a small business piece that will run in the business page of the Granite City Press-Record on Wednesdays as an informational tool about local business. If you would like your business in the paper, e-mail Michael Heil at mheil@yourjournal.com.The Dairy Queen at 3260 Nameoki Road has been chosen as the first business entry for Do You Know.The business has been located on Nameoki Road since 1998. The franchise is owned by Bob Steen of Pontoon Beach. Steen's son, 22-year-old Rob Steen, is the general manager who oversees the day-to-day operations. Dairy Queen is famous for its charbroiled hamburgers. .
Freddie Mac Loses $2B, Seeks New Capital
WASHINGTON -- The mortgage crisis intensified Tuesday as Freddie Mac, the nation's No. 2 buyer and guarantor of home loans, posted its largest quarterly loss ever and warned that it may need to curtail its business unless it can raise fresh capital. Freddie Mac lost $2 billion in the third quarter, much more than Wall Street was expecting, primarily because it needed to set aside $1.2 billion to account for bad home loans. Freddie Mac also said it may slice in half its quarterly dividend of 50 cents per share _ which would be its first dividend cut since becoming a public company in 1989. .
End of an era: SunTrust to buy GB&T Stock slide, mortgage slump helped spur bank deal
The combination of a 10-month slide in the price of its stock and a growing number of developers in default on loans in a slumping housing market was enough for directors of GB&T Bancshares to accept a stock buyout from the state's largest bank. Friday's announcement of the acquisition of GB&T by Atlanta-based SunTrust came on the same day the Gainesville bank holding company announced a third-quarter loss of $6.3 million. "It is all related to the slowdown in the housing market," said Richard A. Hunt, CEO of GB&T Bancshares. "In all of my years in banking, I've never seen the housing market come to a screeching halt like it did this summer. With the concentration all of our banks have in construction and development loans, we've got builders who cannot sell houses and are having trouble paying back loans." Hunt said the bank has had to foreclose on a number of properties.
(UPDATE) RP says $232-M loan set, World Bank denies
A Cabinet official said that the World Bank has decided to continue its plan to extend a $232-million road building loan to the Philippines even as the funding institution's spokesman denied that it will release funds after shelving the deal due to alleged traces of corruption.
Budget Secretary Rolando Andaya said he met with World Bank officials, and was given the assurance that the loan will be extended. He said World Bank officials clarified the loan suspension was done out of prudence and not as a punitive action.
World Bank spokesman Peter Stephens, however, told Reuters: "Our position remains as it was, which is that we want this project to go ahead but it has to go ahead in the right way and at the right time.
Stephens said the institution will not resume loans to the Philippines until the government completes investigations into reports of bid-rigging in the first phase of a road-bulding project.
Treasury Centralization Releases Working Capital GT News.com
Aug 16 2004 : Banking roles in treasury management are being redefined by Internet-based systems and software that allows corporations to make centralized payments without using a bank�s services. Major banks argue that multinational organizations will find treasury centralization difficult without a global banking partner, but banking relationships can be reviewed to identify those suited to centralization, and to what degree. Payments factories, or centralized processing units that may be linked to an in-house bank, are another option for corporations seeking to keep their working capital to a minimum while maximizing efficiency. While payments factories offer attractive cost savings in the ability to convert cross-border payments and collections to local payments, an in-depth knowledge of international banking processes is needed to link operating accounts with the internal treasury�s international liquidity management structures.
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