Now eight large brokerage firms have settled with Auction Rate Securities (ARS) investors. This afternoon Bloomberg News reports Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS) and Deutsche Bank settled with state regulators. Merrill Lynch & Co., Inc. (NYSE: MER) announced another prong of its settlement earlier in the day.

What are the terms of the settlement for the latest two? Bloomberg writes that "Goldman will buy back $1.5 billion of the securities and pay a $22.5 million fine. Deutsche Bank will redeem $1 billion of debt and was fined $15 million." In addition to the rogues gallery of big ARS issuers who have yet to settle, investigators are targeting medium-sized brokers -- Charles Schwab (NYSE: SCHW), Fidelity Investments and E*Trade Financial Corp. (NYSE: ETFC).

This leaves major ARS issuers lagging behind their peers. Here are three holdouts (with their 2007 municipal ARS issuance in parentheses):

• Bank of America (NYSE: BAC) ($3.7 B)
• RBC Capital Markets ($1.2 B)
• Lehman Brothers (NYSE: LEH) ($1.1 B)

What are they waiting for?

Peter Cohan is President of Peter S. Cohan & Associates. He also teaches management at Babson College and edits The Cohan Letter. He has no financial interest in the securities mentioned.

Charles Schwab Corporation (NASDAQ: SCHW) is a leading provider of financial services, with more than 300 offices, 7.3 million client brokerage accounts, 1.3 million corporate retirement plan participants, 355,000 banking accounts, and $1.4 trillion in client assets. The company provides a full range of securities brokerage, money management and financial advisory services to individual investors and independent investment advisors. The Charles Schwab Bank provides banking and mortgage services. President and COO Walter Bettinger took the CEO reins from founder Charles Schwab this week. Schwab remains executive chairman.

Last week, the company presented its Q2 report. Earnings of 27 cents per share and revenues of $1.31 billion topped Street estimates 26 cents per share and $1.30 billion. Clients brought $26 billion in net new assets to the firm. Active brokerage accounts and retirement plan participants were up 5% and 13% from year-earlier levels and banking accounts more than doubled.