New York

It just got harder for banks in Georgia to enforce noncompete agreements in employee contracts. For employees of two merging banks, BB&T and SunTrust, the timing couldn’t be better.

The Department of Financial Services has created a statewide financial protection division focused on corporate compliance and consumer issues, in line with steps taken by New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

The good times continue to roll for two New York City marshals whose work collecting debts for predatory lenders is making them millionaires.

"If you gathered the U.S.-based senior counsels of the major Chinese banks operating in the United States," said Joseph Loffredo, assistant general manager and chief financial officer at the New York branch of China Merchants Bank, "you'd find one outlier, a lady about half the age of most of the others."

In a strategy that other CUs could follow, Concord Federal Credit Union is working with a local nonprofit to provide better access to financial products in central Brooklyn.

A successor to Robert Allen, who has led the $7.3 billion-asset institution for more than three decades, should be named soon.

The company, which is planning to revamp its organizational structure, has seen a sharp increase in funding costs over the past year.

Price Chopper Employees Federal Credit Union is the second institution to merge into the Latham, N.Y.-based Sunmark in recent months.

Intercontinental Exchange Inc. has been facing resistance from federal regulators over a key part of its ambitious plan to bring Bitcoin to the masses. Now, the owner of the New York Stock Exchange is turning to state watchdogs to get the project over the goal line.

CEO Joseph DePaolo lamented the tough funding environment after the New York bank said deposit costs jumped 90% in the first quarter. Signature was the second bank Wednesday to report a drag on profits from funding costs.

The New Jersey company agreed to buy BoeFly, which connects franchisors, small businesses, lenders and loan brokers.

New York's former banking superintendent will spend much of the next three months advising fintech startups on how to cope with regulators.

With an implementation deadline less than a year away, bankers will be pressed to detail how a new accounting rule for loan losses will affect reserves, earnings and capital.

Volunteer Income Tax Assistance is reportedly bringing an influx of consumers to credit unions this tax season, but those institutions are hamstrung on the extent to which they can turn that opportunity into new business.

The Los Angeles bank will take a $1.4 million hit to earnings after the multifamily properties sold for less than their book value.

The pair subject to the regulator's March prohibition orders both pleaded guilty and were ordered to pay more than $320,000 in restitution, among other punishments.

A new outreach effort will target parts of New York City to help boost membership at several African-American credit unions.

Christopher Becker will succeed Michael Vittorio in January.

Municipal IDs help marginalized groups, such as undocumented immigrants, open checking accounts and become credit union members but concerns over regulatory compliance linger.

East Windsor, N.J.-based McGraw Hill Federal Credit Union will merge into PenFed, the latest in a series of growth moves from the nation's third-largest credit union.