The Latest

Nearly all publicly traded equities and a majority of bonds are owned not by the investors themselves but by a little-known entity called Cede & Co. This attenuation of property rights creates systemic risk, but an effort is underway to transform the system.

Brent Beardall, who has been with Washington Federal since 2001, was named president of the $14.8 billion-asset company and its primary banking unit and retains his job as chief banking officer.

The energy sector downturn led to lower second-quarter profit at Prosperity Bancshares in Houston, which continued to shrink the size of its book of oil and gas loans in response.

United Community Banks in Blairsville, Ga., reported higher quarterly gains spurred by fee revenue.

Seven months after disclosing a test enabling Venmo P-to-P users to buy goods and services in-app, the PayPal unit has rolled out the "Pay with Venmo" feature to all users and expanded the list of participating merchants.

The U.S. played host this week to the first cross-border transaction for Brazil's Elo credit card through a partnership with Discover Financial Services, enabling global acceptance to one of Brazil's largest card brands.

As if high default costs haven't been challenging enough for mortgage servicers, a growing number of seriously delinquent loans are Federal Housing Administration products, which require significant upfront investment to resolve.

State Street's cost-cutting plan began to pay dividends, as the Boston company's second-quarter profit rose sharply on lower expenses.

TSYS is beginning to integrate its $2.4 billion acquisition of TransFirst, an initiative the Columbus, Ga.-based processor hopes will substantially extend its ability to serve merchants in the high-pressure arena of multichannel commerce.

Suffolk Bancorp in New York, which recently agreed to be sold to People's United Financial, discouraged several suitors from bidding due to concerns about concentrations of commercial real estate loans at those banks. The disclosures highlight the challenges that banks with heavy CRE exposure could face — as buyers or sellers — if they want to do deals.