Research from the New York Fed suggests that the legalization of sports betting has important implications for consumer lenders.

Republican Sen. Joni Ernst is calling for more scrutiny of 10 lenders that were ejected from a Department of Agriculture program. Several of the lenders are pushing back, questioning officials' characterizations of their lending results and announcing appeal plans.

While the move is seen in a positive light, lenders and Trump administration officials are still angling to raise the loan-size limit within the agency's flagship 7(a) program.

The Omaha, Nebraska-based company announced its second purchase of a Kansas City-area bank in just over a year. It plans to keep expanding in the fast-growing market, according to Chairman and President Clark Lauritzen.

BCB Bancorp in Bayonne, New Jersey, is turning to veteran bank executive Tom O'Brien to accelerate its turnaround after reporting significant losses in 2025.

Governor Greg Abbott proclaimed Texas the "financial capital of America" at the Texas Bankers Association's annual convention; Columbus, Ohio-based Northwest Bank named Chad Ballard chief information officer; Deutsche Bank terminated some staff as a result of its client relationship with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein; and more in this week's banking news roundup.

Farmers and Mechanics Federal Savings Bank in Bloomfield, Indiana, last turned a profit in 2023.

People are becoming increasingly wary that things they see, read and hear may be AI-generated rather than authentic. To maintain customer trust, banks need to leave no doubt that they are people-driven organizations.

The narrative of fintechs as dramatic disrupters of traditional finance is wearing thin these days. More and more established fintech firms have discovered the value of respectability, and deemed it to be worth the cost.

The trillions being poured into AI is putting pressure on the hyperscalers to produce a return on the investments.

Maspeth Federal Savings in Queens has been managed by members of the Rudzewick family, led by long-serving patriarch Ken, for nearly three decades.

An automated alert system auto-closed "a very high percentage" of suspicious-activity flags at the bank, the OCC said.

Amerant Bancorp in Coral Gables, Florida, appointed Carlos Iafigliola its permanent president and CEO; Morton Community Bank in Illinois reached a deal to buy a three-branch franchise in the Land of Lincoln; Bank First in Manitowoc, Wisconsin, agreed to acquire PSB Holdings; and more in this week's banking news roundup.

The business banking fintech, which recently received conditional approval for a de novo bank charter, now has a $5.2 billion valuation.

Artificial intelligence has the potential to vastly improve many of the services banks deliver. It should be viewed as a catalyst to spark the next evolutionary phase of banking, not a harbinger of doom.

The House passed housing legislation that includes a slightly pared-down institutional investor housing ban, as well as a raft of community bank measures.

Upon receiving a conditional U.S. charter approval, 25-year-old CEO Ferdinand Dabitz is assembling a team of industry experts to build a new kind of bank.

Yotta marketed accounts as FDIC-insured and impossible to lose, then moved $28 million of Californians' money to a Synapse arm its own executives didn't trust.

The move comes about a year after rising delinquency levels prompted SBA to raise lender fees and tightened underwriting standards in its flagship 7(a) program.

In a move seen to bolster his 2028 presidential run, California Governor Gavin Newsom named Rohit Chopra, the former director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, to lead a new oversight agency; a Pine Bluff, Arkansas, bank employee was sentenced to 36 months in federal prison for bank theft; a Fairfax, Virginia, security administrator has been charged with allegedly stealing more than $6.6 million from his employer; and more in this week's banking news roundup.