Bankers question the fairness of some compliance penalties charged by the Small Business Lending Fund, which added 3% to its returns through June 30.

Citi, Wells and JPMorgan Chase have all taken substantial chargeoffs in response to new OCC guidance on treatment of home-equity loans, and several other large and regional banks are likely to do the same.

Without one, community banks will face increased risk of litigation they cannot afford. This could push many of them out of the mortgage market.

The gap between consumer and secondary market mortgage rates has blown out to a 12-year high, as this interactive graphic shows. Lenders have trouble explaining what will replace mortgage earnings once production fizzles, however.

Stifel Nicolaus Weisel, an investment banking firm in St. Louis, has jumped to third from sixth place among bank deal advisors this year.

Paul Cronin succeeds Diane D'Erasmo as HSBC's chief of corporate banking for the Northeast and New York City.

Citigroup has gotten rid of almost $500 billion in unwanted assets since the financial crisis, but executives say it still has work to do.

While Comptroller Tom Curry made it clear that regulators will not back down from a push for higher capital levels, he suggested the agencies are considering other ways to reduce the burden of the Basel III proposal for community banks.

Mortgages guaranteed by the Department of Veterans Affairs reached their highest level since 1994 after rising by 50% in the most recent fiscal year.

The payment terminal maker said it's made a pact with Israel's largest card issuer and acquirer, Isracard, to distribute VeriFone's Sail card readers for iPhones and Android devices to Israeli merchants.

TD Bank (TD) says it has misplaced personal information belonging to more than a quarter of a million customers.

The American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit against Morgan Stanley (MS) on Monday, accusing the investment bank of encouraging a subprime lender to make risky loans to African-American borrowers in Detroit.

Visa began offering its V.me digital wallet this week with PNC, the first of more than a dozen bank partners it has lined up.

Grow Financial FCU is trying a novel approach to lure passersby into its branches: an interactive video wall that plays a game with people outside, in which they can win cash.

The complexity of Basel III is irrelevant to 90% of U.S. banks and should not be imposed on them. If rejecting the rules altogether is not considered politically feasible, a sensible alternative would be to simply exempt all community banks from its requirements.

Citigroup Inc., the third-biggest U.S. bank, reported a surprise profit of $468 million for the third quarter, helped by a $582 million tax benefit and bond- trading revenue that beat analysts' estimates.

The asset management unit for Fifth Third Bancorp has agreed to sell some assets to three of its executives.

Banco Santander SA's decision to abandon its 1.7 billion-pound ($2.7 billion) purchase of 316 Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc branches may prompt the U.K. lender to keep them or seek more time to find a new buyer.

Times are tough for community banks. Net interest margins are getting squeezed and loans are hard to find. Bankers must be mindful that their margins of error are also thin as they face temptation to take more risks. Here are some mistakes to avoid.

Banks have a long history of hiring personalities to fill board seats. The practice fell out of favor during the financial crisis but is slowly experiencing a revival. Some appointees bring financial expertise to the table, while others deliver a certain cache to the bank.