Retail & Commercial

The latest tale of wrongdoing tied to the financial services industry is the outcome of a smart customer-centered strategy that went awry. Now, bank customers will ultimately suffer the most.

UMB Financial in Kansas City, Mo., reported higher quarterly profit as it continues to makes progress on a multi-year effort to slash expenses.

CEO Tim Sloan said senior executives made a series of mistakes in response to the phony account scandal, including placing too much of the blame on branch employees.

The $13 billion-asset company said in a press release Tuesday that its third-quarter earnings rose 9.5% from a year earlier to $31 million, or 46 cents a share.

Costs associated with a customer refund reserve in the United Kingdom contributed to a decline in Capital One Financial's third-quarter profit.

Credit losses rose substantially at Discover Financial Services during the third quarter, but the Riverwoods, Ill.-based card issuer still managed to report bigger profits.

Flagstar Bancorp's quarterly profit increased after a decline in the value of a 2012 legal settlement liability tied to its mortgage lending practices.

Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Director Richard Cordray has revived an ongoing dispute between banks and fintech firms over screen scraping, a method certain companies use to obtain access to consumer bank records.

The online lender is entering the car-loan market at a time when some banks are scaling back and regulators are sounding the alarm about deteriorating underwriting standards.

The piling on at Wells Fargo has reached an unprecedented level, even for a bank. Fifteen investigations are underway into Wells' phony account openings. Experts are quantifying the damage to Wells' reputation and what the bank can do going forward to repair it.