Retail & Commercial

As you plan for the coming year — and beyond — here are some challenges and opportunities worth thinking about.

As you plan for the coming year — and beyond — here are some challenges and opportunities worth thinking about.

Even in a digital era, human connections still matter. That is one big disadvantage for fintech startups and increasingly for banks as customers stop making regular branch visits. So it is instructive to hear SoFi's thinking on how to overcome this challenge. It is trying some unorthodox tactics to better understand the people behind the data and to create meaningful connections with them.

From Dimon's campaign against earnings guidance to the bottom-line implications of rising rates, here are more of our favorite stories of the year. (See part I here.)

Kenneth Mahon, the new CEO of Dime Community Bank, wants to reduce the 152-year-old institution's multifamily exposure by diversifying into other asset classes. But finding new business amid already fierce competition could be an immense challenge for Dime — and other community banks — in 2017.

The Rural Housing Service is expanding its manufactured housing loan guarantee program to include more refinancings of used or existing manufactured homes.

Bank stocks are on a tear after Donald Trump's victory drove up expectations for the industry's profits. Here's the catch for many people working there: Holding onto their jobs won't be any easier.

Businesses, governments, universities and the Federal Reserve all struggle to adequately reflect the populations they serve. It's time to take ownership of diversity outcomes.

The commercial-and-industrial loan space is overheated, higher rates could stifle mortgage refinancings, and subprime auto delinquencies are on the rise. Bankers could be fighting these fires and more in the new year.

Hope Bancorp in Los Angeles will close an additional nine branches next year as part of a second round of cost cutting.