Victoria Finkle

MasterCard Inc. and Western Union Co. are expanding a program that lets customers send money via prepaid cards, the companies said on Tuesday.

By purchasing Bonneville Bank, prepaid company Green Dot will be putting itself under the scrutiny of traditional banking regulators. But it may escape increased oversight from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Occupy Oakland deposited $20,000 in a Wells Fargo account several days after it protested the evils of big banks outside one of the bank's branches.

Wells Fargo & Co., Bank of America Corp. and other large lenders are fleeing the reverse mortgage industry, leaving specialty lenders with more business than they know what to do with.

American Express and Target are officially launching a prepaid card, in the credit card company's latest effort to expand its prepaid operations. The deal also bulks up Target's financial offerings without requiring the Minneapolis retailer to recommit to its existing bank operations.

Some banks are starting to notice the poor customers they have long ignored. Regions Financial Corp. is one of several banks expanding its check-cashing and the other "alternative" financial services that have long been offered by Wal-Mart and other non-banks.

American Express Co. announced on Tuesday that it will invest $100 million in early-stage digital commerce startups, as the company steps up its efforts to court younger, tech savvy consumers to widen its customer base.

NetSpend Inc. has landed a deal to issue payroll cards to corporate customers of a large, unidentified Northeastern bank as the prepaid card company recovers from setbacks this year.

The new HARP may help. But its sister program HAMP should also be revised so more borrowers can qualify, mortgage executives and community advocates say.

Men are from Egypt, women are from Disney World. That's the case according to an online survey by Royal Bank of Canada of more than 1,500 Canadian rewards cardholders who were asked what tourist destination they would most like to visit.

MasterCard is short on details for plans to beef up share in the debit card space on its third-quarter earnings call with analysts. The network posted strong earnings and revenue gains despite a sluggish economy.

One of the first large commercial banks to issue reloadable prepaid debit cards, U.S. Bancorp says its familiar brand gives it an edge over alternative providers.

The prepaid card marketer NetSpend is teaming up with PayPal in a deal that has so far been the subject of little fanfare by either company.

Huntington Bancshares Inc. said it will be converting all of its debit cards to MasterCard Inc. from Visa Inc. But MasterCard's coup comes as new regulations and bank fees are cooling the potential of the overall debit market.

Ocwen Financial Corp., which this week agreed to buy Morgan Stanley's Saxon Mortgage Services Inc., isn't planning on stopping its shopping spree anytime soon.

John Robbins, who founded two separate mortgage businesses and sold them to big banks before the housing crisis, has launched Bexil American Mortgage Inc., a retail and wholesale mortgage origination company.

Third-party processors like Total System Services Inc. and First Data Corp., who help run credit card systems for banks, are anticipating new business from the renewed activity in the credit card M&A market.

One third of the low-income households who closed an account between 2009 and 2010 cited hidden or expected fees as their reason for leaving their banks, according to a report released Tuesday by a division of The Pew Charitable Trusts.

The bank has little choice but to shrink itself through asset sales and layoffs, but the process is slow, demoralizing and no answer to future growth.

Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan urged investors to look beyond the bank's poor immediate condition to what he called the "massive strategic repositioning of our franchise."