Lower failure activity drives spending decline, but agency adds resources for Dodd-Frank implementation.

Executive vice president Paul Kadin related some of the company's strategy for becoming more relevant at a marketing conference yesterday.

JPMorgan Chase & Co. will report investment-banking revenue essentially flat with the third quarter, while mortgage-banking results will slip and credit cards will improve, Chief Executive Jamie Dimon is expected to say later Wednesday.

Citigroup Inc. has started job cuts this quarter that will affect nearly 4,500 people, chief executive Vikram Pandit said on Tuesday.

Back in May of 2007 my company started working on a documentary, "Foreclosure Diaries," detailing a crisis that was only beginning to make itself felt. We spent time in what was then the epicenter of the foreclosure crisis; a devastated neighborhood in Cleveland known as Slavic Village. Stripped bare of habitable housing, this once bustling blue collar area was an eerie tableaux of vacant, ramshackle homes; allowed to deteriorate by outside investors who had bought and sold foreclosures, en masse, aiming to profit from a quick flip to other sets of investors; all to feed the endless appetite of Wall Street's securitization magog.

California and Nevada will jointly investigate mortgage fraud at U.S. banks, attorneys general from the two states said.

The extra $108 million of nonperforming assets is not a problem, BMO's chief Bill Downe says in an interview in discussing the Canadian company's integration of its recent U.S. acquisition.

Google says Verizon Wireless is keeping it from building its new mobile payments application into a new line of smartphones that use the Android operating system.

The Federal Reserve has hit Waccamaw Bank with a prompt corrective action ordering the Whiteville, N.C., bank to increase equity or sell itself.

Shares of SunTrust Banks Inc. fell more than 6% Tuesday after the company's chief executive said that he expects costs associated with repurchasing soured mortgage loans to increase in the fourth quarter.

Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley is urging legislators to investigate alleged improper foreclosure practices by Ally Financial, which said last week it would scale back most of its mortgage lending in the state.

Bank of America's proposed $315 million settlement with mortgage-securities investors will have to be approved by Judge Jed Rakoff, who last week blocked a Citigroup settlement with the SEC over securities-related claims.

Ryan Gilbert's recent BankThink article "Give Nonbanks a Nationwide Reach" is part of a massive lobbying campaign by major payday lenders and others to sway Congress to pass H.R. 1909.

A credit union association has "egg on its face" after scaling back its estimate of membership gains, one banking representative says. Another cautions against too much celebration.

Continuing its expansion in entertainment hotbeds outside of Southern California, City National Bank in Los Angeles has opened its first banking office in Atlanta.

The trend of U.S. credit cardholders putting credit card payments ahead of mortgage payments that began in early 2008 shows no sign of abating in the immediate future even as the economy gradually improves, TransUnion analysts say.

An avalanche of private equity-led acquisitions of banks never materialized this year, dampening expectations for a 2012 rebound. But don't tell that to former bankers who are tied to buyout funds.

Doing something — anything — quickly but poorly is no substitute for taking the time to do what needs to be done well.

A second independent advisory firm has weighed in on pending board elections at HF Financial Corp. and this one is urging shareholders to cast their ballots for candidates supported by management.

A bipartisanship bill seeks to give banks a new way to appeal exam results and has regulators steaming.