Merchant

Bluetooth beacons — small nightlight-sized devices that can communicate with a mobile app as shoppers move throughout a store — may have the same potential for bank branches as they do for mega-retailers like Target Corp.

Berkshire Hills Bancorp in Massachusetts invested in technology to beef up its small-business lending, an area ripe for the picking by alternative lenders.

There are more than 43 million student loan borrowers in the U.S., owing nearly $1.3 trillion dollars of debt. The National Foundation for Credit Counseling believes those numbers make it a hotbed for debt relief scams and NFCC officials are warning student borrowers about falling victim.

The Federal Home Loan Bank of San Francisco is exploring ways to use $40 million it received as part of a private-label securities settlement to support small-business development and job creation to help future homebuyers.

Verifone's presence in the mobile point of sale market is as old as Square's, but it has had a bit more trouble reaching Square's market. This year, Verifone's strategy will be to move the goalpost — and to chop it up into smaller segments.

Ray Grace, North Carolina's banking commissioner, believes federal bank regulators should embrace charters for banks dedicated to innovation. Doing so, he said, would help the banking industry secure its spot as a "laboratory for change."

West York Borough, in York, Pa., is owed an estimated $500,000 as a result of delinquent residential sewer accounts, borough officials reported.

Traditional financial institutions are often seen as the outdated rival to new disruptors, but the idea that a bank can't be a marketplace lender, and vice versa, is a myth.

For financial institutions, there are scary parallels between the IRS' failure to protect sensitive personal information and their own such struggles.

For financial institutions, there are scary parallels between the IRS' failure to protect sensitive personal information and their own such struggles.