The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau levied a $83,000 civil money penalty on Monday against Connecticut-based First Alliance Lending, a specialty firm that focuses on providing loss-mitigation financing to distressed borrowers.

Fees on checking accounts continue to climb, especially at the largest banks, as free checking accounts slowly become an endangered species. But the price creep doesn't seem to have cost them customers.

OceanFirst Financial (OCFC) in Toms River, N.J., has added its president and chief operating officer to its board.

American National Bank in Oakland Park, Fla., has been freed from an enforcement action from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.

Bitter weather, the qualified mortgage rule's restrictive guidelines and the lingering effects of the foreclosure crisis have put a crimp in homebuying at an inopportune time for lenders.

A federal court has entered a temporary restraining order halting a deceptive work-from-home scheme that conned millions of dollars from consumers by falsely telling them they could easily earn thousands of dollars a month by purchasing bogus business coaching services and establishing their own Internet businesses.

BancAlliance processed its first member referral for a shared credit, providing hope that banks are starting to regain trust in each other to land bigger borrowers.

Fannie Mae's sales of real estate owned dropped 14% in the fourth quarter from the previous quarter, as demand for foreclosed properties weakened.

SunTrust Banks (SBT) has shifted marketing chief Rilla Delorier into a new role in which she will be oversee SunTrust's consumer banking strategy.

The Baltimore company, which is looking to sell its bank through bankruptcy, secured a judge's support for a proposal requiring advance notice before big investors try and sell common stock.

Big banks survived the financial crisis, but their ability to attract top young talent may not. That's the argument of Kevin Roose, author of the book "Young Money," which chronicles three years in the lives of eight young, and increasingly disenchanted, investment bank employees. Roose discusses why some of the junior bankers he shadowed have left finance; what banks can -- and can't -- do to change their cultures; and how the industry's efforts to promote diversity are still falling short.

Stilwell Group is irate that Poage Bankshares has agreed to buy another Kentucky bank. The activist investor would prefer to see the company buy back stock and, eventually, find a buyer.

First Citizens BancShares (FCNCA) in Raleigh, N.C., said that another key member of its controlling family is stepping down.

Ameris Bancorp (ABCB) in Moultrie, Ga., has received regulatory approval to buy back its remaining preferred stock tied to the Troubled Asset Relief Program.

Central Pacific Financial (CPF) in Honolulu will repurchase a large block of stock from two investors.

It doesn't take much for regulators to kill a product. Last April, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Director Richard Cordray compared banks' deposit-advance loans to payday loans. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. followed by issuing stricter guidelines. Since then every bank that offered the product has dropped it. Following is a timeline of the deposit-advance loan's demise.

The chief executive officer of Mt.Gox, the Tokyo-based Bitcoin exchange where prices are tumbling after it halted withdrawals, stepped down from the board of a key advocacy group for the virtual currency.

Colonial Virginia Bank (CNVB) in Gloucester, Va., has revised its yearly earnings downward after a required adjustment to pension costs.

Smaller institutions see a potential opportunity in fee-laden accounts for pot businesses, but their larger counterparts see mostly risk.

It has been a year after Stifel bought Keefe, Bruyette & Woods in a quest for more scale in the area of bank advisory services. Thomas Michaud, KBW's CEO, reflects on the past year and evaluates trends and forces in bank M&A and capital raising in coming months.