Retail & Commercial

Independence Bancshares in South Carolina last week fired its CEO and gave up its dreams of shaking up the payments world after losing nearly $9 million on the effort. Many details are still unknown, but it looks like a case study for what can go wrong when community banks invest in technology.

Despite their major push to overhaul the housing finance market last Congress, Sens. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., and Mark Warner, D-Va., offered little optimism Tuesday that structural reform is on its way anytime soon.

Sunshine Bancorp in Plant City, Fla., has hired another former executive from the former Susquehanna Bancshares in Lititz, Pa.

Marlin Business Services in Mount Laurel, N.J., has partnered with property and casualty insurer Hartford Financial Services Group to expand services for its core clientèle.

The pace of bank M&A deals slowed in the third quarter and was flat through the first nine months of this year.

Three collection agencies agreed Monday to pay a total of $493,670 in civil penalties to resolve allegations that they committed unfair practices.

A looming dividend spike tied to the Small Business Lending Fund convinced Hopewell Valley Community Bank in Pennington, N.J., to sell itself.

The New York State Department of Financial Services gave a third virtual currency company the green light to begin operations in the state.

U.S. bankruptcy filings totaled 629,570 in the first nine months of the year, an 11% decrease from the 705,728 total filings during the same period a year ago, according to the American Bankruptcy Institute.

Santander Group, the Spanish banking giant, has invested several million dollars in Ripple, one of the most prominent startups in the hotly discussed field of distributed-ledger technology.