Retail & Commercial

Berkshire Hills Bancorp in Massachusetts invested in technology to beef up its small-business lending, an area ripe for the picking by alternative lenders.

Single-family housing construction is set to top multifamily start for first time since the financial crisis.

There are more than 43 million student loan borrowers in the U.S., owing nearly $1.3 trillion dollars of debt. The National Foundation for Credit Counseling believes those numbers make it a hotbed for debt relief scams and NFCC officials are warning student borrowers about falling victim.

The Federal Home Loan Bank of San Francisco is exploring ways to use $40 million it received as part of a private-label securities settlement to support small-business development and job creation to help future homebuyers.

United Security Bancshares in Thomasville, Ala., has agreed to buy a three-acre parcel near Birmingham, Ala., for a new executive office and retail branch.

Activists typically improve a company's stock performance — and can produce "dramatic, excess returns" when they have specific demands, says Josh Hinkel, a partner with Bain & Co.

The fight over the security protections on the San Bernardino, Calif., iPhone is about more than a single device or Apple's product line.

Ray Grace, North Carolina's banking commissioner, believes federal bank regulators should embrace charters for banks dedicated to innovation. Doing so, he said, would help the banking industry secure its spot as a "laboratory for change."

West York Borough, in York, Pa., is owed an estimated $500,000 as a result of delinquent residential sewer accounts, borough officials reported.

Traditional financial institutions are often seen as the outdated rival to new disruptors, but the idea that a bank can't be a marketplace lender, and vice versa, is a myth.