Interest rates

A Fed committee studying Libor’s replacement has dwelled heavily on the potential impact to the derivatives market. Loans may become a bigger part of the conversation later this year, but the panel plans to leave a lot of the specifics up to lenders.

Federal Reserve officials said they would begin running off their $4.5 trillion balance sheet “relatively soon” and left their benchmark policy rate unchanged as they assess progress toward their inflation goal.

Defaults on first-lien mortgages fell 5 basis points in May from the previous month, dropping to their lowest level in a year, according to the S&P/Experian Consumer Credit Default Index.

The expansion of the Federal Reserve’s portfolio of Treasury debt and mortgage-backed securities has a bigger impact on the credit markets than paying banks interest on excess reserves.

The German bank posted two consecutive years of losses partly because of misconduct fines tied to the Libor and other scandals.

Wintrust’s mortgage revenues fell in the first quarter, but net interest income picked up the slack.