Hundreds of bailed-out banks are still struggling to repay taxpayers and will soon find it even harder to make required dividend payments to the U.S. Treasury, according to a report released today by the watchdog for the government bailout program, Reuters reported today. Of the 707 banks that received taxpayer money from the government's Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) starting in 2008, about half have repaid the U.S. Treasury. However, 137 of those banks used a government-loan program to repay their taxpayer debts, according to the Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program's (SIGTARP) quarterly report to Congress. And of the 325 banks still propped up with taxpayer money, 203 have missed dividend or interest payments, with some missing as many as 13 payments since receiving capital injections at the height of the financial crisis, said the report. Adding to their woes, the dividend that the bailed-out banks are required to pay to Treasury is set to increase to 9 percent from the current 5 percent as early as 2013.
Click here to read the quarterly SIGTARP report.
http://www.sigtarp.gov/Quarterly%20Reports/July_25_2012_Report_to_Congr…