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Mont., Ariz. banks in deal; Goldman Sachs unit, BofA settle bias charges

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Mont., Ariz. banks in deal; Goldman Sachs unit, BofA settle bias charges

Kalispell, Mont.-based Glacier Bancorp Inc. has agreed to acquire Lake Havasu City, Ariz.-based State Bank Corp. The deal, which is expected to close late in the fourth quarter or early in the first quarter of 2020, will help Glacier Bancorp expand its franchise footprint in Arizona.

AssetMark Financial Holdings Inc. will acquire OBS Financial Services Inc. through its unit, AssetMark Financial Inc., in an all-cash deal that is expected to close in early 2020.

Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC settled charges of race- and gender-based discrimination brought against it by the U.S. Department of Labor. The company will pay about $10 million in relation to the findings and will voluntarily provide make-whole relief for about 600 affected workers at its New York headquarters.

Additionally, Bank of America Corp. will pay $4.2 million in back wages and interest as part of a settlement with the Labor Department, which alleged that the bank refused to hire women and minorities for many jobs in four states.

Dallas-based Comerica Bank issued a statement in relation to an alleged brand infringement operation being carried out by VRB cryptocurrency throughout Asia. The bank said it does not have any affiliation with the group and "any attempt to represent it as such is false and fabricated."

Delaware Chancery Judge Andre Bouchard ruled that BGC Partners Inc. directors will need to face lawsuits from investors who claim that the company purchased Berkeley Point Financial LLC at an inflated price, Bloomberg News reports. Bouchard decided that the plaintiffs had enough evidence, citing the questionable independence of the directors involved from BGC Chairman and CEO Howard Lutnick, who is also the chairman of Cantor Fitzgerald LP. BGC acquired Berkeley Point Financial from Cantor Commercial Real Estate Co. in 2017.

Morgan Stanley Wealth Management is seeking legal intervention against its former brokers, Gary Burwick and Marc Engelman, to keep them from contacting their former clients, AdvisorHub reports. Morgan Stanley claims that the brokers have been soliciting their previous customers after their transfer to Wells Fargo.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission charged Northbrook, Ill.-based SBB Research Group LLC and its CEO Samuel Barnett and COO Matthew Aven with alleged fraud that inflated fund values and overcharged investors about $1.4 million in fees.

Blockchain software company Block.one agreed to pay $24 million in civil monetary penalty to settle the SEC's charges that it conducted an unregistered initial coin offering of digital tokens.

Republican House representatives urged Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Director Kathleen Kraninger to continue to allow certain insured depository institutions to estimate third-party fees and exchange rates in cases where exact disclosures are not possible. The Dodd-Frank Act contains an exception that explicitly allows federally insured financial institutions to estimate third-party fees and exchange rates when providing remittance transfers to their account holders for which they cannot determine exact amounts. The exception is set to expire in July 2020.

House Democrats have floated a proposal that would have the Financial Stability Oversight Council designate Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud as systematically important financial market utilities, or SIFMUs, American Banker reports. The lawmakers are concerned of the risks involved due to the concentration of bank-related cloud services in those tech companies.

In other parts of the world

Asia-Pacific: Paypal enters China payments market; Westpac mulls life insurance exit

Europe: Credit Suisse COO quits over spying; stricter rules for UK funds; Luminor sale

Middle East & Africa: Fitch cuts Saudi Arabia's rating; Nigerian banks miss deadline to boost lending

Now featured on S&P Global Market Intelligence

Q3 brings jump in bank deals in Texas : M&A activity in the community bank space ramped up in Texas in the third quarter, with nine bank or thrift deals with a Texas-based target announced through Sept. 23, up from seven in the first half of 2019. In 2018, 22 whole-company or minority deals were announced.

Bank of America, US Bancorp gain mortgage market share with digital offerings : The largest U.S. mortgage originators lost ground last year, but some lenders that have touted new digital platforms maintained or increased market share.

The day ahead

Early morning futures indicators pointed to a higher opening for the U.S. market.
In Asia, the Nikkei 225 lifted 0.59% to 21,885.24.
In Europe, around midday, the FTSE 100 fell 0.40% to 7,378.59, and the Euronext 100 was down 0.15% to 1,097.49.

On the macro front

The Redbook Index for retail sales, the Purchasing Managers' Manufacturing Index, Institute For Supply Management manufacturing index and the construction spending report are due out today.

Click here to read about today's financial markets, setting out the factors driving stocks, bonds and currencies around the world ahead of the New York open.

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