Kevin Wack

Accountants, as well as lawyers and consultants, who helped small businesses apply for emergency relief funds through the Paycheck Protection Program want to be compensated. Are they entitled to be?

The veteran banker will serve as chief administrative officer, with responsibilities that include strengthening Citi’s data architecture, creating greater consistency in its dealings with regulators and enhancing its efforts to combat money laundering.

The changes being sought would benefit both small businesses and banks, which would avoid the cost of servicing many low-yielding loans.

The new product, which comes as an earlier partnership with the online lender Kabbage is sputtering, figures to appeal to companies with tight cash flows.

Bankers spent Monday cleaning up damaged branches, wondering if their small-business clients will need more emergency aid and contemplating how the racial and economic inequalities highlighted by days of violent protests nationwide can be corrected.

Since March, issuers have tightened their criteria for opening new accounts and closed millions of existing ones in hopes of avoiding waves of defaults.

The economic contraction caused by the coronavirus pandemic has been worse than the Wall Street firm had modeled two months ago, its president John Waldron said Wednesday.

A Democratic measure to freeze foreclosures and auto repossessions through the coronavirus crisis while expanding eligibility for loan forbearance is getting strong pushback from banks and credit unions, which complain it would constrain credit.

Four federal agencies offered guidance Wednesday on how to offer products that compete against payday loans without incurring Washington's wrath. The announcement could spark the rebirth of deposit advances, which were regulated out of existence during the Obama administration.

Nearly 4 million households that were to be mailed paper checks will instead receive their pandemic relief aid via prepaid debit cards issued by MetaBank.