Retail & Commercial

New York’s attorney general called on more than 90 banks including units of Toronto-Dominion Bank and HSBC Holdings to revamp customer screening procedures to give poor people better access to financial services.

The financial condition of the Federal Housing Administration’s mortgage insurance fund has improved “significantly” over the past year, Department of Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julian Castro predicted late Monday.

Led by a team of financial services and regulatory veterans and young techies, Privacy.com represents the first mainstream attempt to build a business explicitly around transactional privacy in the era of Edward Snowden and Ashley Madison.

Most mobile wallets clearly favor one industry over another, with banks and retailers often pitted against each other in a battle over payment card fees. JPMorgan Chase just made a stunning move by conceding some of this ground to the benefit of the Merchant Customer Exchange.

Alerus Financial in Grand Forks, N.D., has agreed to buy Alliance Benefit Group North Central States, a retirement plan administrator in Minnesota.

The $3.5 billion-asset Fidelity Southern said in a press release Monday that it will pay $27 million in stock for the $205 million-asset American Enterprise. The deal is expected to close in the first quarter.

German American Bancorp in Jasper, Ind., has agreed to buy River Valley Bancorp in Madison, Ind.

The ease of comparing rates online will make it hard for industry pioneers like Lending Club and OnDeck to keep generating high-margin loans, some observers believe.

The bank owners of the clearXchange payments network and the Early Warning risk management service hope that by combining the two programs, they can remain in control of technologies that will become core to mobile commerce.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. recently held meetings with state regulators in which agency officials emphasized that they are open to new applicants, responding to criticism that the standards for granting deposit insurance have been too high.