Merchant

WASHINGTON — The Education Department's plan to tighten restrictions on deals between banks and universities sparked a fierce debate Friday over whether such rules are long overdue or a significant overreach.

Interactive Intelligence Group Inc., a global provider of collaboration, communications and customer engagement software and cloud services, has released Interaction Collector for Student Loans.

European private equity firm Permira has agreed to buy German debt collection agency GFKL from Advent, the companies said Monday.

Debt buyer PRA Group announced Monday it will expand into the German debt purchase market.

While U.S. banks and clearing houses contemplate how to convert the country's payments system into near real-time, Taulia has made strides by offering a dynamic discounting option to encourage clients to use its technology for B2B payments.

Apple Watch is and will continue to be a big hit for their loyal consumers, both in terms of sales and acclaim. But for payments, it's not what consumers are looking for now.

So far, Washington has generally smiled on tech-driven lenders such as Lending Club and OnDeck. But many in the fast-growing industry are now bracing for closer scrutiny.

A proposal issued Friday by the Department of Education would tighten rules on the types of deal that colleges can enter into with banks to disburse federally guaranteed loans to students.

A $10.2 million settlement of a class action involving JPMorgan Chase has stoked the interest of banking industry and consumer groups in new rules for placing robo-calls.

The FTC has settled a case against an operation that allegedly used deception and threats to convince people to pay debts they did not owe.