Banks are transforming branches, rolling out new products and experimenting with alternative data, in an effort to bring more people into the financial mainstream. Such initiatives might have been a footnote in the past, but they have grown into a serious business strategy lately.

A sudden funding crisis forced John Bryant to shake up Operation Hope and develop a new model that relies heavily on banks to promote financial literacy. If it succeeds, Bryant says, it will drive more customers to banks and credit unions — and maybe even put payday lenders out of business.

The unfortunate reality is that those who most need credit counseling help are also the hardest to reach. In a Q&A, the agency's financial literacy honcho, Gail Hillebrand, talks about efforts to empower the vast swath of American who aren't terribly savvy.

Financial illiteracy is costing cities billions in revenue. Would more money-management programs in schools — funded by the sale of government bonds — change that?

The upstarts are shaking up the world of small-business financing, but with fraud concerns mounting, some say it's only a matter of time before they come under the scrutiny of state and federal regulators.

Banks want to make loans to people with scant credit histories, but the challenge is figuring out how to do so safely. One possible solution is to look at alternative data. Eager to book more loan business, more and more banks are considering such factors as rent payments, purchasing patterns, even an applicant's spelling to help predict creditworthiness.

Creating checking accounts, mortgages and consumer loans with features that suit folks with lower incomes is paying off in unexpected ways for some banks.

Could getting people to save more money be as easy as changing around the office furniture? Based on Emily Garbinsky's research, the answer is yes.

It's easy for banks to spin their wheels on local reinvestment, financial education and other efforts to help underserved communities. To make outreach programs successful, bank executives need to carefully vet nonprofit and other partners, listen to their employees on the front lines and reflect on their own reasons for getting into banking.

Daunted by the challenge of how your bank can help underserved members of the community? Here are some simple tips and bits of wisdom from bankers, nonprofit leaders and local government officials.

Sorry, banks, 28% of consumers are taking their business elsewhere. Here's what you should know about the elusive "underbanked" and "unbanked" market segment, with charts to illustrate.

OnDeck Capital, the online lender whose initial public offering raised eyebrows in December, posted a net loss of $4.3 million for the fourth quarter in its first report as a public company.

A disappointing 2014 for HSBC has CEO Stuart Gulliver considering "extreme" changes at its U.S. bank and other struggling units, which he said are a drag on return on equity.

It's not quite too big to fail, but Ocwen is the country's largest servicer of subprime mortgages. So if it were forced to sell itself, or even failed, the transfer of some $410 billion in servicing rights could create havoc in the mortgage market, industry experts said.

With the economy recovering, Chris Hurn saw an opportunity to start another company focused on Small Business Administration 504 loans — his longtime specialty — and spread the word to business owners about the benefits of owning their facilities.

Most millennials do almost all of their other business on a portable device, so they want to have this same functionality when buying a home.

Sunwest Bank in Irvine, Calif., has been sending employees to Africa and South America since 2011 to do philanthropic work. While such projects could help recruit Millennials, industry experts also see challenges selling foreign missions to employees and customers.

Sheila Bair, the former chairman of the FDIC, has the answer for significantly reducing the regulatory burden on small banks: give regulators the power to exempt institutions with less than $10 billion of assets from any new or existing regulation.

Home meal-prep delivery company PeachDish is working with Bitcoin processor BitPay to enable payments in the virtual currency.

Like a number of startups and "neobanks" that have sprouted up to challenge incumbent retail banks, Fidor Bank is positioning itself as a more consumer-friendly, tech-savvy alternative.