Critics say branches are expensive and losing customers, but bankers this week rallied in defense of their brick-and-mortar locations, even as they acknowledged that branches are losing some ground to mobile and online banking.

Chimera Investment Corp., a publicly traded REIT that invests in MBS, said in a new SEC filing that it has fired its accounting firm, Deloitte & Touche LLP.

Fannie Mae this week reported "significant improvements" in the performance of several of its largest seller/servicers, even though only half received satisfactory reviews.

Mortgage bankers funded roughly $41 billion of jumbo loans in the fourth quarter, a 28% increase from the same period a year earlier, according to exclusive survey figures compiled by National Mortgage News and the Quarterly Data Report.

An appellate court has ruled that a borrower has the right to sue a servicer for violating the Home Affordable Modification Program, but a judge noted that the decision would have been helped by input from the Treasury Department.

The terms of the national mortgage settlement overlap to some extent with existing federal consent orders against the largest servicers, which could complicate banks' compliance efforts with both — and the role of the external settlement monitor.

Seacoast Commerce Bank in Chula Vista, Calif., will open its first loan-production office in Utah.

Community bankers are worried about stress tests, even though there is nothing in the Dodd-Frank Act requiring them to do it. While regulators are not requiring the tests for smaller banks, they are increasingly encouraging bankers conduct such tests.

In Barbara Rehm's column "It's Time for Money Funds to Fess Up About Fluctuating Values," she characterizes the $1 net asset value as "a fiction," which is defined at something feigned, invented or imagined.

Orrstown Financial Services Inc. in Shippensburg, Pa., said it expects to reach formal agreements with regulators that could require it to strengthen its credit risk management practices.

John Tonetti, debt collection program manager for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, on Thursday told an audience of collection industry leaders that the regulatory agency is listening to debt collectors.

United Community Financial Corp. in Youngstown, Ohio reported a fourth-quarter profit of $7.9 million, compared with a loss of $17.3 million a year earlier, after selling four branches.

A tepid economy and regulatory uncertainty together make for strange bedfellows, as epitomized by recent deals to sell two banks to, of all things, credit unions. And along with the deals comes renewed debate on whether the nonprofit institutions should be taxed.

For years, Litton Loan Servicing was open to making a deal with delinquent borrowers. Then Goldman took over.

For young businesses to succeed, they first need business management tools, networks and coaching. Only after they have these things are they ready to take out loans.

Fannie Mae has delivered a second blow to standard industry practices for force-placing homeowners insurance on borrowers whose policies have lapsed.

TAUNTON, Mass. – Taunton FCU will be celebrating a grand opening for its new branch inside Trucchi’s Supermarket in Middleboro on Saturday.

How a whistleblower's allegations about mishandled credit card debt and shoddy recordkeeping at JPMorgan Chase snowballed into the shutdown of a multi-billion dollar credit card litigation operation and an OCC review.

Peoples Financial Corp. in Biloxi, Miss., revised its fourth-quarter and 2011 results to record an additional $660,000 for its loan-loss provision.

Coming off its fourth-straight money-losing year, United Bank of Philadelphia is under orders from state and federal regulators to clean up its loan portfolio, improve its capital ratios and submit to regulators a detailed plan for returning to profitability.