Retail & Commercial

Requiring brokers to come clean with customers about conflicts of interest sounds like an easy way to address biases. But disclosures are only effective if recipients understand how the conflict has influenced the advisor and have a way to correct that influence.

A Liverpool, N.Y. collection agency that allegedly engaged in threatening and abusive practices must close permanently and pay back $400,000 to debtors, according to a court order.

Late payments on home equity credit lines hit their lowest level in more than six years, defying warnings about the looming aftershocks of loose bubble-era lending standards.

The delinquency rate on loans backed by the value of consumers' homes hit a postcrisis low in the first quarter, according to the American Bankers Association.

Mortgage originators willing to help consumers overcome traditional financing hurdles can add more emerging segments of home buyers as clients.

Federal and state regulators said the $216 million settlement against JPMorgan Chase is a warning that they are not finished targeting firms that mishandle collections or improperly resell bad debts.

Greg Carmichael, a former IT executive, has been tapped to lead Fifth Third Bancorp, a move showing the growing importance of technology in banks' operations. He'll have to find new ways to grow revenue as he succeeds Kevin Kabat, under whom profitability has sagged recently.

Paring back branch networks is a quick way to cut costs. But executives at large regionals are reluctant to make such cuts until they have found a way to thrive at other delivery channels.

JPMorgan Chase has agreed to pay more than $200 million to settle claims by federal and state authorities that the megabank wrongfully collected credit card payments on hundreds of thousands of consumers.

The National Credit Union Administration announced that it has issued a federal charter to ELCA Federal Credit Union, making it the third such new charter for 2015.