Retail & Commercial

For all their talk, banks are still sorely lacking when it comes to creating a great user experience in their digital channels, as this unhappy customer can attest.

With the role of the chief financial officer being redefined since the financial crisis, we asked CFOs at banks across the country, from Stock Yards' Nancy Davis to Comerica's Karen Parkhill, about what parts of the job they most enjoy, which tasks are taking up more time now than in the past, where they wish they could spend more time and, finally, what they would tell themselves at the beginning of their careers. Here are some of their responses.

The German bank's massive strategic overhaul will include cutting key businesses and leaving 10 countries, but it plans to invest in the U.S. despite all the regulatory troubles it has had here.

With low rates tempting more home owners to refinance and relaxed down payment requirements spurring more home sales, bankers are more optimistic about mortgage lending than they have been in some time.

Another quick illustration of why bank customers and regulators are demanding that the U.S. move to a real-time payments system.

Carolina Premier Bank in Charlotte, N.C., has recruited Timothy C. Key to be its new chief lending officer and Carrington S. "Cash" Canada as its chief credit officer.

Signature Bank in New York is poised to start lending to city governments. The move is well-timed; the wind-down of GE Capital removes a competitor and provides Signature with a chance to buy assets and hire salespeople.

Sun Bancorp in Mount Laurel, N.J., swung to a profit thanks to branch closings and other expense reductions.

Old National Bancorp in Evansville, Ind., missed first-quarter expectations as merger-related and streamlining expenses negated many of the benefits from recently completed acquisitions.

As a pawnbroker for over 26 years and a former president of the National Pawnbrokers Association, I am alarmed and dismayed by the recent wave of banks terminating their relationships with pawnbrokers.