Household HSBC Watch

For years people said HSBC should have instituted professional banking standards when they bought troubled predatory lender Household International. Bank of America certainly learned that. If BofA incorporated Countrywide without BofA standards it would have been a problem. Bank of America Corp. plans to institute strict new lending guidelines once it completes the acquisition of troubled lender Countrywide Financial Corp. later this year, the banking giant said Tuesday. In the case of Household and HSBC, simply instituting strict new lending standards would not solve the problem.