I was just reading the blog below. Has anyone heard anything about this?

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Signature Bank is one of the first five institutions to pay back bailout money to the U.S. government.

Signature, which is based in Manhattan but has six branches on Long Island, received $120 million in December from the Capital Purchase Program and returned that amount, plus a 5 percent dividend, to the government Tuesday.

Iberiabank Corp. of Lafayette, La.; Bank of Marin Bancorp of Novato, Calif.; Old National Bancorp of Evansville, Ind.; and Centra Financial Holdings Inc. of Morgantown, W.Va., have also given the money back, for a grand total of $353 million, plus $5.4 million in dividends, returned to U.S. taxpayers.

The banks were eager to get out of the government’s pocket because it’s started placing restrictions on institutions that take taxpayer money. For example, the government said banks that participated couldn’t pay executives more than $500,000 per year until the money was returned.

Banks have also feared the government will ban participating banks from paying dividends.

Signature bank said in a statement that the executive pay cap was the reason the funds were returned so quickly.

So far, the government has given out more than $200 billion in bailout funds since October. Two Long Island-based banks, State Bank of Long Island and Flushing Financial, got $36 million and $70 million respectively. Neither has repaid yet.



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