Retail & Commercial

The New York State Department of Financial Services and the Federal Reserve Board penalized Metropolitan Commercial Bank for failing to prevent $300 million in fraud in a prepaid card program. It is the latest example of a bank being sanctioned in connection with rampant fraud during the COVID-19 pandemic.

"We'll be taking steps to offset expense pressures," CEO Curtis Farmer told analysts after the company reported an 11% year-over-year jump in costs and falling profits.

Executives say the $213 billion-asset company's strong credit performance in the third quarter positions it to pursue loan growth next year.

High deposit costs and low-yielding assets weighed on the company's net interest income, which fell to its weakest level since the first quarter of 2017. But Key executives predicted that a turnaround is coming soon.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's proposal would give consumers a legal right to grant third parties access to financial data for a specific use, but firms cannot sell the data or use it for their own benefit — including by feeding it into algorithms or artificial intelligence.

Six weeks after unveiling a broad restructuring plan, the North Carolina bank said it has already taken several steps to lower expenses, and that various cost-reduction initiatives are on parallel paths.

The Department of Justice alleged that Ameris failed to open a single bank branch or provide home loans in minority neighborhoods in Jacksonville, Florida. Attorney General Merrick Garland said that many similar redlining investigations are currently underway.

There are good reasons to be skeptical in the face of predictions of a revolution in banking led by generative artificial intelligence.

Questions about how it will be implemented and whether the rest of the market will follow the agency's lead make the expense involved difficult to estimate.

Worried about the economy and new Fed rules on capital, the bank wants to hang onto its money just in case, CFO Daryl Bible told investors as he outlined second-quarter earnings.