Each Friday, we're looking for glints of positive news in the onslaught of negative credit and personal finance reports. Today's news comes directly from the banks and is aimed to help struggling homeowners – I know, it's surprising!
JP Morgan Chase, Citi and Bank of America have signed on to a moratorium on foreclosures through mid-March. The move is designed to give some time for the government to come up with a plan to deal with foreclosures. From the Dow Jones report:
Obama is scheduled to outline his plan to stem foreclosures next week.
"I am asking you at this time to commit to this committee and to the people
across America that you will do something here … and that is to commit to
having a moratorium on all foreclosures that each of your banks and affiliates
deal with until the Treasury secretary can put together this package," Rep. David Scott , D-Ga., said at Wednesday's hearing.
Citigroup CEO Vikram Pandit in that hearing first told lawmakers of his
company's intent to institute a foreclosure moratorium, saying Citigroup "would
commit to making sure that people stay in their houses."
So, potentially happy news for homeowners with first mortgages at Chase, Citi or Bank of America. You just got a month of breathing room from your banks for Valentine's Day.
Emily Peters – Credit.com's personal finance expert and former TransUnion credit bureau insider. Emily writes about credit reports, credit cards, loans and personal finance as the CreditBloggers.com editor.
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Let’s hope that Obama and the rest of the Federal government can come up with a long term plan. It’s nice to give families another month to figure things out, but most will still be in the same situation at the end of that month. So far I’m not impressed with the bailout plans. The banks that are getting money should be forced to use that money to help the people they approved for mortgages they obviously couldn’t afford.