Retail & Commercial

Remember how last year's shutdown of the Small Business Administration's flagship loan-guarantee program prompted Congress to provide more funding? SBA made every penny count in the fiscal year ended Sept. 30, backing 64,073 loans for a record $24.1 billion — a 2% increase.

Without investigations by the Los Angeles Times and city prosecutors, the Wells Fargo account scandal would never have come to light. Where were federal regulators?

To help ensure that women are included in digital banking's future, we must reach girls and young women at an earlier age than their college years to equip them with the IT tools they need to succeed in tomorrow's workforce.

It's official: Goldman Sachs, the Wall Street investment banking titan, now offers consumer loans.

The new CEO has vowed to clean up the sales practices that tarnished the bank's reputation and cost John Stumpf his job. But skeptics from Wall Street to Capitol Hill say Sloan, too, was "culpable" in the phony account-opening scandal and that only an outsider can fix what ails the nation's third-largest bank.

In states with strict rules on small-dollar loans, lenders could see an opening in the language of the CFPB rule to actually hike rates, observers say.

Hingham Institution for Savings in Massachusetts said a double-digit spike in lending contributed to a strong third quarter.

The change at the top of the No. 3 U.S. bank by assets after a snowballing phony-accounts scandal marks the rare case of a major U.S. bank CEO resigning amid accusations of company misconduct. His successor, Tim Sloan, faces a hard road to recovery.

Heightened regulatory scrutiny, stricter credit-quality reviews by buyers themselves, cautiousness over systems conversions and other factors have added about three weeks to deal closings in recent years. There are inherent risks in that trend and ways to minimize them.

Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce Chief Executive Officer Victor Dodig said new federal government housing rules will slow growth in mortgage lending, though he expects the decline to be manageable.