With President Obama touting the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau as a symbol of his support for the little guy, Republicans struggle for a response that resonates with voters.

The economic benefit of home-loan refinancing to consumers far exceeds the effect of lost returns to investors who provide the residential financing, according to a Federal Reserve Bank of New York research paper, in the bank's latest salvo in support of a more active U.S. housing policy.

Two small Kansas banks that have been fixtures in their rural communities for decades are planning to merge in a bid to improve efficiency and better contend with increasing compliance costs.

Regions Financial in Birmingham, Ala., is issuing an exclusive debit card honoring the Crimson Tide's 2011 BCS championship.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau released supplemental guidance Wednesday to its exam manual, which will help examiners looking at mortgage origination at both banks and nonbanks.

While most banks have stayed mum about Richard Corday's recess appointment, Citigroup weighed in with its analysis in a blog post Wednesday.

Two community banks have recently implemented products, including mobile check capture and a rewards app, from Malauzai Software.

Bankers usually salivate over a chance to grow loans and diversify beyond real estate. So why have only 36 banks signed on for BancAlliance, a co-op designed to give them a shot a bigger commercial loans?

Washington Federal Inc. in Seattle said Wednesday that its fiscal-year first-quarter earnings jumped 36% from a year earlier, to $33.4 million, due to lower credit expenses.

The CFPB can and should impose safeguards against predatory payday lending institutions. And big banks should take heed and stop providing these lenders with lines of credit.

Two GOP senators took strong exception to recent suggestions by Fed officials that more should be done to fix the U.S. housing market.

CINCINNATI – Emery FCU said it closed its downtown branch after First Financial Bancorp, the building’s owner, declined to renew its lease.

For all the talk about legal challenges to the recess appointment of Richard Cordray as director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the American Financial Services Association, which represents nonbank consumer lenders, has no intention of stepping into the fray.

The Dodd-Frank Act in general, and in particular its favorite child, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, represent sharp political disputes, as now with bypassing the Senate by the "recess" appointment of its director.

FARMINGVILLE, N.Y. – Teachers FCU, which moved into a new headquarters in nearby Hauppauge in November, has sold its old offices here for $4.6 million.

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JPMorgan Chase & Co. has quietly ceased filing lawsuits to collect consumer debts around the nation, dismissing in-house attorneys and virtually shutting down a collections machine that as recently as nine months ago was racking up hundreds of millions of dollars in monthly judgments.

Three months after putting its "forward" mortgage origination business on the block, MetLife announced Tuesday it had shut the operation down.

Michael Williams, the president and chief executive officer of Fannie Mae, announced plans to step down as soon as a successor can be appointed, according to a company filing issued Tuesday to the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Intuit is taking its GoPayment mobile card reader to Canada and is redesigning the product to make it more appealing to use.