If you're a bank that took government TARP funds, whether you asked or were forced to take them, you better be very careful about paying for travel or entertainment for any of your employees or clients. Latest example: Northern Trust (NTRS), a custodian bank that had the nerve to send people and entertainment to the Northern Trust Open golf tournament. Of course, now people are irate because NTRS took $1.6 billion in TARP money and is now "using taxpayer dollars to throw parties."

Don't be shocked if they give the money back very soon. Northern Trust is not your typical lending institution, but instead focuses on back office services for financial services firms. As a result, the company is actually doing very well and continues to make good profits even in this environment. The company didn't want or need TARP money, but former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson didn't give them a choice, he made them take more than a billion dollars.

We are now hearing that many banks (those that took TARP funds) are cutting the dividend on their common stock to one cent per share per quarter, thanks to the new wave of government involvement in the management of these firms. Since many investors rely on dividends for regular income, and some banks tried to reject the government money and the accompanying scrutiny, these dividend cuts are tough to stomach for the healthier firms and their investors.

There are alternatives though, namely the publicly traded preferred stock of these banks, which pay lofty dividends and aren't in danger of being cut because the government is getting paid interest in the form of preferred dividends. There is no way Treasury will make banks cut its own dividend payment, so as long as a bank is relatively healthy and is in little danger of being the next victim of the credit crisis, investors can dip their toes into the preferred stocks of the stronger banks.

Not only are these preferred shares trading at large discounts to par value, but the dividend yields range from 10% to 15% in most cases. In order for a bank to stop paying preferred dividends, it really has to be in bad shape, so if you are looking for high dividend yields in the banking industry, look at the preferred stocks of those banks you think will survive the current mess.

Full Disclosure: No position in Northern Trust at the time of writing, but positions may change at any time