National City Bank is said to have joined the consortium of banks that waive assignment fees on a reciprocal basis and others, including CIBC World Markets, are expected to follow shortly. Officials at Nat City did not return repeated calls and CIBC officials declined comment on the matter.
The most recent bank to join before Nat City was TD Securities. "The primary goal of the consortium is to promote liquidity by tightening two-way markets," said Kevin Dooley, a senior par trader at TD, at that time (LMW, 5/16).
The others in the group are Credit Suisse First Boston, Citigroup, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, Wachovia Securities, Merrill Lynch, Scotia Capital, Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns, Morgan Stanley, UBS and Bank of New York. Despite the gaining strength of the initiative, JPMorgan and Bank of America are absent from the group.