Retail & Commercial

United Community Financial in Youngstown, Ohio, has agreed to buy James & Sons Insurance.

Opus Bank in Irvine, Calif., has agreed to buy Pensco Trust Co. in San Francisco from Pensco Services.

The way the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is regulating the auto finance industry's relationships with dealers is simply wrong — both legally and ethically — according to Blair Evans of Baker Donelson. It's also directly counterproductive to its goal of protecting consumers, she says.

In South Africa, parents who default on school fees are increasingly being turned over to debt collectors to help debt ridden high schools.

Calls with analysts to discuss the fourth-quarter results were dominated by questions about energy exposure, efficiency and the growing worry about when the next credit cycle may begin. Still, some banks managed to get in a few thoughts about how technology is reshaping their businesses.

Imagine offering a borrower a better rate or a bigger loan because a handful of his buddies say he is an upstanding guy who they are so confident will pay back his loan that they are willing to cover a portion of it if he doesn't.

There have been many reports of bitcoin's demise, but the fate of one currency doesn't eliminate the many use cases that virtual currency could still address in payments, according to Evan Duffield, a Phoenix-based developer and founder of the virtual currency Dash.

Discover says it will help consumers seeking to establish or rebuild a credit score by expanding the availability of its Discover It Secured Credit Card, which offers the cash-back rewards and security measures of its mainstream cards.

The Secured It Card requires a security deposit but also offers cash-back rewards and other perks normally associated with Discover's traditional cards.

Farmers Capital Bank in Frankfort, Ky., plans to extinguish $15 million of subordinated debt. The $1.8 billion-asset company expects to record a $4.1 million pretax gain during the first quarter from the transaction.