Retail & Commercial

Community banks’ marketing efforts should aim to go beyond increasing brand visibility to engage customers face to face.

Prosper Marketplace, one of the nation’s largest marketplace lenders, has agreed to purchase the consumer finance app maker BillGuard.

The man allegedly used his Baton Rouge, La.-based credit repair company to dupe his victims.

American banks long ago deserted their most impoverished communities. Today, post offices are uniquely well positioned to serve the underbanked population — and perhaps reinvigorate a culture of saving in the process.

The marketplace lender is paying $30 million in cash plus an undisclosed amount of stock. It plans to use BillGuard’s apps, which come with detailed information about their users’ financial habits, to attract new borrowers.

Webster Financial in Waterbury, Conn., has opened an Atlanta office to focus on asset-based lending in the southeastern U.S.

Citigroup will close its Boston branches to focus on areas where the lender has a bigger presence just months after describing the city as a key market.

Washington Federal in Seattle said its chief financial officer, Diane Kelleher, plans to step down at yearend.

Severn Bancorp in Annapolis, Md., has hired a former Susquehanna Bancshares executive as its chief lending officer.

In an effort to get a head start on the feeding frenzy, Malvern Federal Savings Bank in Paoli, Pa., will hold job fairs to gobble up employees laid off by BB&T in Pennsylvania.