A credit review, along with concerns about certain change-in-control agreements, led Southwest Bancorp last summer to terminate a letter of intent to buy First Commercial Bancshares. The banks revisited the deal months later — at a lower premium — after First Commercial addressed the issues.

The former operators of an online payday lending scheme in the Kansas City area will be banned from the consumer finance business under a proposed settlement with the Federal Trade Commission.

A federal court has stopped the operations and froze the assets of a national debt relief telemarketing business that is under investigation by the Federal Trade Commission and the state of Florida.

The Supreme Court's recent ruling that the disparate impact theory of liability can be applied to the Fair Housing Act means mortgage lenders must be even more vigilant in their ongoing testing and evaluation of business practices that could be interpreted as even unintentional discrimination.

A federal court has halted and frozen the assets of a nationwide credit card debt relief scam that allegedly stole millions of dollars from consumers.

Payment Alliance International, a Kentucky-based independent sales organization and ATM provider, has partnered with charitable fundraising firm Digital Processing Solutions to create a new "Digital Donations" program accessible through ATMs.

Premier Financial Bancorp in Huntington, W. Va., has agreed to buy First National Bankshares in Ronceverte, W. Va.

The operators of a scheme that allegedly bilked millions of dollars from consumers by trapping them into loans they didn't authorize will be banned from the consumer lending business under settlements with the FTC.

While hiring a chief risk officer is a given at the big banks, smaller institutions must weigh several factors and options in determining the risk leadership model that works for them.

Twelve of the largest financial firms provided more information than they did last year in the public versions of their plans for breaking themselves up in a financial catastrophe, but whether they have done enough to reassure regulators won't be known for months.

Suffolk Bancorp in Riverhead, N.Y. has promoted Anita J. Nigrel to executive vice president and chief retail officer, a newly created position, effective Monday.

First National Bank of South Africa says the offering for its direct-deposit customers should give them one more disincentive to leave, beyond the usual hassles of switching financial institutions.

Wells Fargo and two other companies must repay customers more than $30 million in mutual-fund-related overcharges, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority said Monday.

The Detroit automaker's lending arm is teaming up with a peer-to-peer car-sharing app — a move that could foreshadow changes in how the industry underwrites auto loans.

First National Corp. in Strasburg, Va., has a new bank president. The $530 million-asset company said in a press release Monday that Dennis Dysart would also remain chief operating officer of First Bank.

National Bank Holdings in Greenwood Village, Colo., plans to repurchase as much as $100 million of its common stock.

Regulators in New York plan to crack down on high-interest loans made to military service members by closing a critical loophole.

Residential mortgage loans in active foreclosure that are at least two years delinquent experienced large gains in the last seven months, according to a new report.

There are plenty of opportunities for banks to collaborate with the tech startups that are driving rapid change in the financial industry. But first they need to find innovative ways to address systemic challenges like compliance as well as cultural differences.

Community banks that try to serve too broad an array of customers will wind up losing out to larger competitors. They would do better to focus on one or two customer segments and familiarize themselves with those groups' specific habits and needs.