By Lauren Tara LaCapra

(Reuters) – Goldman Sachs Group Inc (GS.N: Quote, Profile, Research) surprised Wall Street on Tuesday, reporting better-than-expected profit and dialling back risk-taking in ways that are uncharacteristic for the traditionally aggressive investment bank.

In fixed income, currency and commodities trading (FICC) — where Goldman has been known for lucrative, if risky, bets — the bank highlighted interest-rate products as a bright spot and said other major businesses reported lower revenue.

By Lauren Tara LaCapra

(Reuters) – Goldman Sachs Group Inc reported higher-than-expected quarterly earnings thanks to aggressive cost-cutting and strong investment banking and trading revenues, and the Wall Street bank raised its dividend.

Goldman earned $2.1 billion, or $3.92 per share. In the year-ago period, which was generally stronger for investment banks’ trading and banking activity, it earned $4.38 per share, excluding a one-time cost for buying back preferred stock.

April 13 (Reuters) – Goldman Sachs Group Inc Chief
Executive Lloyd Blankfein’s compensation increased 14.5 percent
to $16.2 million in 2011 despite a sharp decline in profits and
share price during the year, leaving the bank open to more
attacks on its pay policies.

Blankfein’s pay boost includes stock awards from previous
years that vested in 2011, and therefore does not reflect the
amount that Goldman’s board awarded him strictly for the
company’s performance last year.

April 12 (Reuters) – Former Morgan Stanley Chief
Executive John Mack has joined the board of LendingClub Corp as
the peer-to-peer lending startup works to attract more investor
money and expand its consumer loan offerings.

LendingClub Chief Executive Renaud Laplanche said he tapped
Mack for the role because of his experience in the bond market,
where LendingClub markets its pools of consumer loans, and in
the wealth-management industry, where it is actively courting
financial advisers to sell its products to clients.

April 5 (Reuters) – Morgan Stanley Chief Executive
James Gorman took home compensation totaling $13 million in
2011, down 14.5 percent from 2010, in contrast to the increases
enjoyed by other big Wall Street CEOs.

Gorman, 53, received a bonus of $2.7 million, stock and
options awards of $9.4 million and a salary of $800,000, Morgan
Stanley said in a proxy filing on Thursday with the U.S.
Securities and Exchange Commission.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – As Morgan Stanley finishes integrating its brokerage joint venture with Citigroup Inc and considers spending $10 billion to buy the whole business years ahead of plan, investors are anxiously awaiting signs that the long-promised profit machine will finally start to purr. Since agreeing to buy Citi’s Smith Barney in 2009, Morgan Stanley executives have told shareholders that returns from the retail brokerage, the world’s largest, will soar and create a more consistently profitable bank. Investors are still waiting.

From the end of 2009 to the end of last year, client assets climbed by $89 billion, or 5.7 percent, to $1.65 trillion, even as volatile markets continued to spook clients. Revenue per adviser rose to $755,000 last year from $692,000 in 2009.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – As Morgan Stanley (MS.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) finishes integrating its brokerage joint venture with Citigroup Inc (C.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) and considers spending $10 billion to buy the whole business years ahead of plan, investors are anxiously awaiting signs that the long-promised profit machine will finally start to purr. Since agreeing to buy Citi’s Smith Barney in 2009, Morgan Stanley executives have told shareholders that returns from the retail brokerage, the world’s largest, will soar and create a more consistently profitable bank. Investors are still waiting.

From the end of 2009 to the end of last year, client assets climbed by $89 billion, or 5.7 percent, to $1.65 trillion, even as volatile markets continued to spook clients. Revenue per adviser rose to $755,000 last year from $692,000 in 2009.

April 2 (Reuters) – Goldman Sachs Group Inc has named
Jim Schiro to replace lead independent board director John
Bryan, who plans to retire in May.

Schiro, former chief executive of both Zurich Financial
Services AG and PricewaterhouseCoopers , has
been on Goldman’s board since May 2009 and has been an
“influential voice,” Goldman Chairman and Chief Executive Lloyd
Blankfein said in a statement.

April 2 (Reuters) – UBS AG named several
executives to senior positions in the United States and Europe,
in the latest move by the Swiss bank to rebuild its business
after a massive trading scandal and departures by scores of
bankers in recent years.

UBS said on Monday it had formed two new executive
committees, one each in the United States and Europe. The bank
said it had tasked the members with meeting performance targets
across its wealth-management, investment banking and asset
management divisions.

By Lauren Tara LaCapra and Carrick Mollenkamp

(Reuters) – Four giant card-payment processors and large U.S. banks that issue debit and credit cards were hit by a data-security breach after third-party services provider Global Payments Inc discovered its systems were compromised by unauthorized access.

It was not immediately clear how many cardholders became victims of the breach, which affected MasterCard Inc, Visa Inc, American Express Co and Discover Financial Services, as well as banks and other franchises that issue cards bearing their logos.