Litigation fears may impede industry support for shorter credit card term agreements, even though most issuers agree reducing the amount of text is a nice idea.

Short-term disruption of the financial services industry will most likely come from within: when banks partner with financial services entrepreneurs and embrace innovation. It's happened repeatedly in the payments sector: PayPal and Wells Fargo ten years ago, Square and JP Morgan Chase Paymentech today.

Cullen/Frost Bankers Inc. in San Antonio announced Monday that it has agreed to acquire the human resource consulting firm, Stone Partners Inc.

The Royal Bank of Scotland unit, as part of a larger effort to slim down, plans to put its 27 supermarket branches on Long Island up for sale soon, sources say.

Piedmont Community Bank Holdings Inc. in Raleigh, N.C., wants to up its ownership stake in Crescent Financial Corp. of Cary, N.C., and is giving Crescent shareholders more time to mull its offer.

The mobile payment venture Isis, still almost a year away from launching its application, is partnering with an industry heavyweight to serve as the security guard for its wallet.

Former Wal-Mart financial services head Jane Thompson praises the innovative customer service and design of some bank branches - especially at the now-defunct Washington Mutual Inc.

The Baltimore law firm Ober Kaler has added longtime banking attorney Andrew F. Campbell to its financial institutions practice.

Fiserv said Monday that more than a dozen financial institutions signed up for its mobile source capture product.

Peoples Bank of Alabama in Cullman, Ala., is launching 30 of NCR's SelfServ automated teller machines that allow customers to deposit checks and cash at the same time through a single slot.

The stocks of 10 community banks will be added to the Nasdaq ABA Community Bank Index next week while the stocks of four others will be removed.

PNC Financial Services Group Inc., of Pittsburgh, officially entered the Atlanta market over the weekend after closing a deal to acquire Flagstar Bancorp Inc.'s 27 branches there.

First Niagara's chief knows how to party, photos show. Lighter moment is part of serious effort at breaking the ice with new employees of a rapidly growing company, officials of the Buffalo bank say.

Even with the housing market stabilizing and a settlement between megaservicers and state AGs on the horizon, the mortgage industry shouldn't expect an increase in originations next year, according to a new forecast from Keefe, Bruyette & Woods.

Although insurance giant MetLife Inc. is contemplating bids for its banking and mortgage divisions, the company's warehouse lending unit is nearing the $1 billion mark in terms of commitments.

After reporting a profit of $2.6 million in the third quarter, Pacific Continental Corp. in Eugene, Ore., is projecting a loss in the fourth quarter as result of expected writedowns on certain real estate loans.

Wholesale lenders table funded almost $33 billion of loans in the third quarter, giving the channel a 9.2% market share, according to new figures compiled by National Mortgage News and the Quarterly Data Report.

The consumer agency officially opened its ombudsman’s office on Friday.

It costs a bank $349 a year on average to maintain a checking account. As banks decide whether or not to add fees to their free checking offerings, they must evaluate their costs carefully.

Borrowing ticked down in the third quarter, but so did personal income and property values, and household assets took a big blow from the drop in stock prices. That left three key measures of household financial stability – debt to net worth, mortgage debt to owner’s equity, and debt to disposable income - either flat or worse.