Full-service bank customers have a tough time understanding the appeal of prepaid cards to the unbanked, and can't relate to feeling comfortable with all those fees. But it sure beats being surprised by them.

The current regulatory approach to compliance has led bankers to stop offering certain consumer loan products or to increase what they charge. We all lose if the cost of compliance forces regulated lenders to send customers to the back-alley loan shark.

Getting Associated Banc-Corp back in shape required painful writedowns, fresh capital, lending discipline, cultural adjustments, new growth tactics, more transparency — and a leader to put it all together. Enter Phillip Flynn.

Banks are back on billboards, in mailboxes, and over the airwaves. But what executives call "investment spend" can be heartburn-inducing profligacy to analysts and investors.

For all the anxiety over low interest rates, net interest margins are higher now than they were for much of the last decade. For banks with less than $10 billion of assets, NIMs have been climbing for two and a half years.

Broadway Financial's new CEO; Goldman's Blankfein stands up for gay marriage; CenterState's preemptive strikes; Peetz's Penn State gig; ICBA's Nashville meet.

The Mortgage Forgiveness Debt Relief Act is set to expire at the end of the year. While extending relief to stressed homeowners seems a no-brainer with millions of mortgages still underwater, some worry the measure could be allowed to die.

After more than three years of turmoil, the financial services industry is starting to regroup and move forward on the public relations front. It's a return to normalcy, accompanied with a natural inclination to return to the familiar and comfortable. But with new regulations and a rapidly changing communications environment, there is a need to consider fresh ideas — from unexpected sources.

IMGCAP(1)]

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Thursday will announce the claims process for thrift shareholders who last year won a breach-of-contract case stemming from the savings-and-loan crisis.

When a judge blocked BankAtlantic's complicated deal to sell the healthy portion of its thrift to BB&T, it was the third so-called good bank/bad bank deal in Florida to get hung up.

A key financing partnership for Ally Financial Inc. could be at risk as part of Chrysler Group LLC's review of its lending programs.

When the 14 biggest mortgage servicers signed consent orders last April over foreclosure misdeeds, they hoped the deal would indemnify them against further claims. Regulators now appear unlikely to grant them blanket immunity.

Regulators say risk-based capital is the ratio they most want to see strengthened, community bankers say. That's a problem because minimum requirements could rise and examiners are said to exercise broad discretion in enforcement.

The expanding array of U.S. cards that use the secure EMV standard now includes the first cobranded hotel card equipped with a chip to make overseas travel easier.

Bank of America has added a new investment offering to its Merrill Edge program for mass-affluent investors, the bank announced Wednesday.

Terri Dial, a former top executive at Wells Fargo & Co. and Citigroup Inc. and widely regarded as one of the industry's most influential women, died Tuesday in Miami. She was 62.

American Express announced Tuesday a new Facebook application that allows the social network's users to send and receive funds.

Now that PayPal is rolling out its point of sale payment system to all Home Depot Inc. stores, the payments company must make sure its terms are good enough to keep its most prominent retail partner happy.

Pacific Mercantile Bancorp in Costa Mesa, Calif., has restructured its planned stock sale to an institutional investor in a move that will save it almost $1 million and increase a key capital ratio.