The regulatory nod that allowed prepaid card company Green Dot to buy a bank marked a culmination of founder Steve Streit's rocky, years-long effort to move from the profitable fringes of banking into the mainstream.

Concerned about robberies, Chappell Hill Bank began encouraging patrons to bring legally concealed weapons into its branch. Now the Texas bank's unconventional CEO needs to find ways to bring in loans.

The election season, already off to a fascinating start, will have an added twist for high-ranking members of the House Financial Services Committee.

Bank marketers are generally content with how their firms approach social media. The trick now is using digital channels to synthesize what consumers want before they even know they want it.

Fundamentally, banks connect those with money to those who need it. By limiting access to the systems that handle the transactions, banks have been able to charge big fees. But the walls are breaking down now.

There have always been regulatory impediments to the pursuit of profit, but bankers are increasingly worried about how to preserve the self-determination they have left.

Dearest Debit Card,

Banks that are caught flat-footed by the Baby Boomers' next big demographic shift will want to avoid the "nobody saw it coming" argument — because it really won't be all that believable.

The underperformance of big bank stocks last year helped restore their yields to a rough parity with smaller peers, but actual quarterly payouts remained a small fraction of pre-crisis levels.

Safety-and-soundness orders continued to abate late last year in another sign that the banking industry is regaining its balance.

Confusing fees, perplexing choices, interactions that can be painful. Retail banking is full of complexities that keep consumers baffled. But will people pay for a simpler experience?

New York Life's annuity products aren't likely to become any higher yielding or any more exciting as the Baby Boomers start retiring en masse, but it certainly seems they will be in greater demand.

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SAINT JOSEPH, Mich. – Honor CU said it opened a Chieftain Student CU branch inside the Dowagiac Middle School yesterday, which will be run by eighth graders.

WATERLOO, Iowa – The City Council voted to purchase an Iowa Community CU branch for $814,000, to clear the way for construction of a planned $23-million indoor Cedar Valley SportsPlex.

Caught between Democrats and Republicans, Freddie Mac is guilty of the ultimate sin: owning something it can't easily explain.

CenterState Bank in Winter Haven, Fla., bought a failed bank Friday. John Corbett, the head of CenterState, hired the target's new CEO months ago. He has used that philosophy several times to expand — and doesn't plan to stop there.

Sterling Bancorp's fourth-quarter profit rose 51% from a year earlier, to 5.3 million, as loan volume and net interest income improved.

The recession left its mark on many industries, but if it had a silver lining for 7-Eleven, it may have been the opening it created to get into a more-profitable array of financial-services products in response to shifting consumer demand.

Community banks on average seem to be losing less revenue from a lower interchange cap that first forecast. Observers caution that those banks can't get too comfortable since market forces have yet to change the landscape.