June 10, 2009

The Obama administration marked with little fanfare a major milestone in its bank rescue effort — its decision on Tuesday to let 10 big banks repay federal aid that had sustained them through the worst of the crisis — as policy makers and industry executives focused on the challenges still before them.This is not a sign that our troubles are over,” President Obama said. “Far from it.”

While the announcement had been expected for weeks, the official word put the administration’s imprimatur on a corps of big banks considered healthy enough to extricate themselves from Washington’s grip.The bank holding companies, among them American Express, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase and Morgan Stanley, plan to return a combined $68.3 billion.