Just consider today's wedding: The bride's parents or the couple themselves set a budget for the festivities with perhaps savings accessed or even a loan acquired to cover mounting costs.
This part of the business includes commercial loans, acquired residential mortgages, subordinated debt and most treasury assets.
The bank, which employs about 10,000 staff, slashed the value of its loans by £496m, as corporate loans acquired with its disastrous takeover of Britannia Building Society in 2009 continue to deteriorate.
Many of the loans acquired by Bear Stearns and EMC were subprime mortgages, including interest-only loans, and some were made with little or no documentation of the borrowers' income, the F.T.C. said.
New single-family loans acquired by Fannie Mae were charged a guarantee fee of 31.1 basis points, on average, in the third quarter of 2011, the most recent period for which data are available.
Particularly instructive for Treasury may be the partnerships the F.D.I.C. has formed with private equity groups and other profit-seeking investors, who are being given a chance to earn a big return in exchange for their help in managing billions of dollars worth of troubled loans acquired from defunct banks.
As part of the IndyMac deal, the F.D.I.C. agreed to take most of the risk from future losses on loans acquired by the partnership — leading Mr. Flowers to quip at one investor forum in New York in January that "the government has all the downside and we have all the upside".
The government agreed to take most of the risk of future losses on the loans acquired by the investors — leading Mr. Flowers to quip at an investor gathering in January that "the government has all the downside and we have all the upside".
But that figure includes loans acquired when Wells bought Wachovia in the fall of 2008.
To settle a predatory lending case brought by 15 states attorneys general, Bank of America has agreed to an $8.4 billion modification program covering some 400,000 loans acquired when it took over Countrywide Financial in July.
