Retail & Commercial

Mortgage servicer Residential Credit Solutions agreed Thursday to pay $1.5 million for blocking consumers’ attempts to keep their homes from foreclosure.

The FTC is mailing nearly $1 million to people who lost money in a credit card interest rate reduction scam.

Retailers had made repeated efforts to reject two class-action settlements — one with Visa and MasterCard, one with Amex — to no avail, but a well-publicized scandal involving lawyer conduct has swept up both cases and given the critics a real shot at scuttling them.

Consumers hold tight to the belief that servicers are only concerned about their ability to make payments, despite a growing industry focus on customer experience.

Santander Consumer USA Holdings in Dallas reported higher profits due to a spike in gains on loan sales.

A recent FCC ruling lumps legitimate businesses in with the telemarketing abusers and will hold banks to unrealistic standards.

A new Government Accountability Office report found that the Internal Revenue Service’s uncollected tax debts rose 23% since 2009 to $380 billion while the agency’s collection staff fell 23% during the same period after years of budget cuts.

ESSA Bancorp in Stroudsburg, Pa., has agreed to buy Eagle National Bancorp in Upper Darby, Pa., for $25.3 million.

Lenders have increasingly turned to niche businesses, such as equipment financing, to differentiate themselves from competitors. Some banks, like Bank of the Cascades in Oregon, are choosing complicated specialties like aircraft financing that may scare off potential rivals.