Traditional bankers could be forgiven for hoping that the direct banks would have gotten their comeuppance by now. But the branchless (or nearly branchless) upstarts look to be very much on the ball.

Median deposits per branch have jumped significantly since 2007 for many banks.

The qualified mortgage rule issued by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau could be disruptive to the FHA single-family program, so the Department of Housing and Urban Development is starting the process of issuing its own QM rule.

United Community Financial in Youngstown, Ohio, has added an advisor to the company to its board.

United Financial Bancorp in West Springfield, Mass., is closing a pair of Connecticut branches just months after buying them.

Bankers must concentrate on achieving greater efficiencies, stop focusing on short-term goals and strike the right balance between unacceptably poor compliance practices and unattainable perfection.

The banking industry's pace of expansion, which had shown signs of accelerating in late 2012, appears to have lost momentum.

Darrell Green, an initial investor in the bank, enjoyed a Hall of Fame career with the National Football League's Washington Redskins.

Flushing Financial in Lake Success, N.Y. is now a bank. The $4.5 billion-asset company said Thursday that it had also merged Flushing Savings Bank and Flushing Commercial Bank to create a commercial bank chartered in New York.

The 11 state attorneys general who have joined a lawsuit against the Dodd-Frank Act are arguing for their case to be heard despite a request by the government to dismiss the suit.

Lenders are lowering rates and stretching out loan terms to win business, and that combination could spell trouble when interest rates rise.

Bank of American Fork in Utah held a retirement party Wednesday for an executive who has spent 45 years with the bank.

A big gain in servicing fees propelled Ocwen Financial (OCN) in the fourth quarter. Earnings at the Atlanta mortgage servicer rose to $65.1 million, compared with $9.7 million a year earlier.

The deal-hungry Independent Bank Group in Mckinney, Texas, is planning to raise up to $92 million through an initial public offering.

Some of the nation's biggest banks are touting their small business bona fides. Citigroup (NYSE:C) said Thursday the company's lending to small business borrowers rose 21% in 2012 from a year earlier, to $9.6 billion.

The head of Toronto-Dominion Bank (TD) said Thursday that he is not interested in buying Royal Bank of Scotland's U.S. operations.

Some think the Minnesota bank would be hard to sell, but if William Cooper got a deal done, he could make nearly $16 million.

The Senate Banking Committee held another hearing on FHA's capital shortfall Thursday, debating whether to focus on stabilizing the agency's finances or pushing for more substantive changes.

Emigrant Bank in New York has received regulatory approval to sell branches to Apple Bank for Savings.

Making home loans that aren't "qualified mortgages" will soon carry legal risk. Will making only QM loans expose lenders to fair-lending claims under the disparate impact doctrine? Washington must clarify.