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.

Rumors are that Google will launch its Google Wallet app in London this summer.

Republic Bancorp in Louisville, Ky., announced on Friday that it would soon stop making refund-anticipation loans as part of a settlement with the FDIC. Now it needs to find revenue to replace the $24.5 million the business has made this year.

Phishing scams typically target bank customers. One scam in North Dakota focuses instead on users of the prepaid card marketer Green Dot's MoneyPak.

The Buffalo company is scheduled to close on $1.1 billion of offerings over three days next week to pay for its increasingly problematic deal to buy 195 HSBC branches.

Keefe, Bruyette & Woods is advising investors to steer clear of most big banks' stocks in 2012 and invest instead in life insurers, credit card companies and smaller-cap regional banks.

Lars Svensson, deputy governor of Sweden's central bank recently urged the Federal Reserve to find ways to push borrowing costs lower — this even though we already have the lowest nominal interest rates in modern history.

While American banks including Citigroup Inc. are ramping up layoffs, an Accenture report finds that demand for bankers is outpacing supply in the Middle East.

As Wells Fargo finishes a large upgrade to its fleet to enable single slot "no envelope" deposits, it's also expanding its use of customer relationship management and personal financial management via a link to centralized data analysis.

Bank of Virginia in Midlothian, Va., has named a new senior vice president of operations as it launches a $40 million commercial lending effort.

First Security Group Inc. in Chattanooga, Tenn., has named a former executive of the failed Integra Bank Corp. as chief executive of its banking unit, FSGBank N.A.

Southern Community Financial Corp. in Winston-Salem, N.C., has split the roles of chairman and chief executive.

Republic Bancorp in Kentucky said in a regulatory filing Friday that it has settled its months-long battle with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. over its controversial refund anticipation loan product.

CUNA says now that membership for credit unions grew by only a third of what it originally projected for the weeks before Bank Transfer Day.

Looking to bulk up in affluent Orange County, California United Bank in Encino announced Friday that it is buying the $450 million-asset Premier Commercial Bancorp in Anaheim for $38.1 million in stock.

Prosperity Bancshares Inc. in Houston has struck its second deal in three months, announcing Friday that it is buying East Texas Financial Services Inc. in Tyler in all-stock deal.