Allissa Kline is a Buffalo, New York-based reporter who writes about national and regional banks and commercial and retail banking trends. She joined American Banker in 2020 and previously worked for more than a decade at Buffalo Business First, where she covered banking and finance, insurance and accounting. Kline started her journalism career at the Observer-Dispatch in Utica, New York. She graduated from Colgate University and the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University.
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The two megabanks continue to shrink their branch networks, with BofA planning to close 20 locations and Wells recently shuttering 15. Both banks are also opening new branches in certain markets.
October 17 -
Jane Fraser defended Citigroup's recently announced organizational overhaul and specific performance targets, saying the plan is different from prior restructurings because it's designed to fundamentally change how the company operates.
October 13 -
The consulting giant's annual global banking review highlights a stark trend: Over a seven-year period, more than 70% of the net increase in financial assets ended up not on U.S. banks' balance sheets, but instead at insurance and pension funds, sovereign wealth funds, in private capital markets and elsewhere.
October 12 -
M&T Bank, Truist Financial and Eastern Bankshares are among the banks that have sold all or part of their insurance subsidiaries over the last year. Though the price is right, analysts warn that when interest rates decline, sellers will be without a key source of fee income.
October 3 -
The North Carolina company is cutting its board of directors by more than a third, using a combination of retirements and early departures. The move means that a majority of board members will come from the predecessor company SunTrust Banks, which may give CEO Bill Rogers more leeway to make changes.
October 2 -
Two months after the mysterious failure of the Heartland Tri-State Bank in Elkhart, Kansas, a news article sheds light on its downfall. CEO Shan Hanes was involved in a cryptocurrency hoax involving a $12 million wire payment, according to the Bloomberg Businessweek report.
September 28 -
Since her promotion to chief executive officer of $2.4 trillion-asset Citigroup in March 2021, Fraser has taken several decisive steps to simplify and modernize the sprawling megabank.
September 27 -
The $75 million deal between the megabank and the U.S. Virgin Islands includes various commitments, such as terminating customers' accounts if there is credible information that the accounts are involved in human trafficking.
September 26 -
The nation's largest bank, which acquired the remains of San Francisco-based First Republic following its failure this spring, has completed its plans to close 21 offices this year. But the consolidation effort is likely to continue.
September 22 -
The banking industry, which has a long history of sponsoring sporting events, is pouring more money into the live-music industry, according to a new report. Music-related events and properties make up 39% of the sector's sponsorship portfolio, up from 25% two years ago.
September 20 -
Carrie Tolstedt, scheduled to be sentenced Friday for her role in the company's phony-accounts scandal, has already paid for her crime and should receive three years probation, her attorneys argue in a sentencing memo. Prosecutors have recommended a year in prison.
September 14 -
Fraser has a plan to reduce the number of management layers at Citi, shrink its workforce, speed up decision-making and give herself more control of the bank's five core businesses. "It's going to make some of our people very uncomfortable," she said.
September 13 -
The North Carolina bank, which has been facing pressure to curb spending, rolled out a plan that includes job cuts, the consolidation of businesses and lower technology spending. Analysts wonder whether it will soothe investor frustration over Truist's sagging stock price.
September 11 -
Some analysts and investors want the North Carolina bank to make big changes to meet financial targets, which they say aren't being met more than four years after the BB&T-SunTrust merger. The critics will be closely watching a presentation by top Truist executives on Monday.
September 8 -
The Department of Justice is recommending a sentence of 12 months behind bars for Carrie Tolstedt, a former Wells executive who has pleaded guilty to obstructing a bank examination. That's harsher than the recommendation of the U.S. Probation Office.
September 5 -
The New York megabank is considering splitting its institutional clients group division into three parts following the upcoming departure of top executive Paco Ybarra, the Financial Times reported. The heads of the three segments would report directly to CEO Jane Fraser.
August 21 -
The racially targeted mass shooting at a Buffalo, New York, grocery store in 2022 has renewed conversations about whether banks have a duty to help segregated, impoverished communities that were shaped in part by discriminatory lending practices. What do banks owe the Black community, and what influence could they have?
July 31 -
Median noninterest income at midsize banks rose 7.2% in the second quarter, exceeding expectations. Dallas-based Texas Capital stood out from the pack, reporting a large uptick in fee income thanks largely to its new investment banking platform.
July 31 -
The Hicksville, New York, company says its deposit base is stable and poised for growth four months after its acquisition of the failed Signature Bank, some of whose depositors fled to larger banks. Private bankers — including new hires from another failed bank, First Republic — are trying to win back lost deposits.
July 27 -
The Dallas-based company, which saw $3.7 billion of deposits withdrawn after Silicon Valley Bank failed, now predicts average deposits will fall 14% to 15% compared with last year. However, the pace of outflow is slowing, say the bank's executives.
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