Jon Prior

The Minneapolis company has agreed to buy PFM Asset Management. Like many in the industry, it is hunting for additional sources of noninterest income.

Community banks support legislation that would exempt them from paying tax on interest earned from farmland loans, arguing it would make them more competitive with government-backed lenders and expand access to credit in rural areas.

Andrew Harmening, who took the helm of the Wisconsin company in April, pointed to an economy emerging from the pandemic and waning loan deferrals, saying that loan growth could resume by the end of the third quarter.

Nine of the 12 largest banking companies in the U.S. proposed higher quarterly payouts to shareholders. In announcing the actions, the banks touted their strength after more than a year of economic dislocation.

Some of the 23 large banks that participated in last week’s stress tests will be better positioned to reward shareholders than others, since they padded their capital amid the pandemic. Still, all are expected to tread cautiously amid ongoing economic uncertainty.

Four companies — Regions Financial, MUFG Americas Holdings and the U.S. arms of the Royal Bank of Canada, BMO Financial— felt they had something to prove to the Federal Reserve after being assigned higher capital buffers than most of their peers last year. Will their decisions pay off for shareholders?

Splash recently raised $44 million from investors. It plans to use the funds to aid small institutions that lack the resources to build their own loan platforms but are flush with deposits and looking for new lending opportunities.

In a reversal of a Trump-era decision, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau says it has the legal authority to test lenders for potential violations of a law protecting military borrowers.

Inventory shortfalls continue to constrain commercial lending, while the savings glut is holding back consumer borrowing, industry executives say. The good news: At some banks, pipelines are at or above pre-pandemic levels.

The bank has its eye on younger cardholders who are ready to spend more heavily now that pandemic restrictions have eased.