Retail & Commercial

Record deposit growth, improved expense management and strong revenue gains from mortgage banking boosted Umpqua Holdings’ profits in the third quarter.

Executives of at least a half dozen regional banks have spent time on earnings calls updating cost-cutting plans in great detail or defending selective spending increases — even when the extra dollars are supposed to save money or make more money in the long run.

Small banks have limited resources to address cybersecurity, but more are turning to advisers and auditors to develop strategies that can keep them safe and compliant.

Sometime last month, scandal-plagued Wells Fargo decided to stop referring to its branches as "stores." It may have been a knee-jerk reaction to intense public scrutiny, but it may also be long overdue given retail banking's evolution.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau decried an appeals court ruling last week that found its single-director structure unconstitutional, saying the opinion was "wrongly decided" and had "no basis in the text of the Constitution or in Supreme Court case law."

Rather than addressing a pressing need like an economic crisis, a fintech charter would place the federal government in the business of choosing winners and losers in a market, with the potential to distort the banking system.

A strong and dynamic risk detection system requires focusing on the most important blind spots not satisfactorily explained by existing tools, rather than focusing on the "answers" produced by those tools.

BB&T in Winston-Salem, N.C., rode recent acquisitions to a record profit in the third quarter.

Banc of California, the lender that's paying $100 million to sponsor a soccer stadium, rose in early trading Wednesday after moving up its quarterly earnings release following a report by an anonymous short seller that caused the shares to plunge a day earlier.

Its loan-loss provision increased largely due to energy-related loans, but Hancock Holding in Gulfport, Miss., still reported higher third-quarter profits. Lower expenses and an increase in lending for healthcare, equipment finance and mortgages were the main reasons.