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.

New defaults have tailed off and the pool of bad accounts against which to collect is aging. Yet recoveries have held steady or climbed at large issuers – even in the face of stiffening resistance over documentation problems.

Citigroup announced an upgrade to its online banking application for Apple's iPad that includes what Citi says is the first such robust iPad credit card account-analysis application.

GE Capital has agreed to run the toy retailer's consumer credit card program and buy $900 million of its card assets from JPMorgan Chase & Co. Expect more deals like it this year.

Visa chairman and chief executive Joe Saunders downplayed concerns over the costs associated with implementing its new digital wallet at the company's annual shareholders meeting on Tuesday.