Retail & Commercial

Like a number of startups and "neobanks" that have sprouted up to challenge incumbent retail banks, Fidor Bank is positioning itself as a more consumer-friendly, tech-savvy alternative.

Student loan debt remains a pressing concern in the U.S. because of high balances and high rates of delinquencies and defaults. The issues have been discussed in recent blog posts by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s Liberty Street Economics team.

There's nothing wrong with big banks gaining market share because they offer the products and services that customers want. But there's a problem when big banks can beat off their smaller rivals with a club fashioned by legislators and regulators.

New Residential Investment Corp., a U.S. real estate investment trust, agreed to buy Home Loan Servicing Solutions Ltd. for about $1.3 billion.

One way to help the global economy prosper is to think of the poor and the middle class as untapped assets for entrepreneurship and job creation. That was the premise underlying a panel discussion at a recent conference on financial inclusion.The panel included, from left, Clare Woodcraft-Scott, the chief executive of the Emirates Foundation; Monica Mehta, managing principal of Seventh Capital in Houston, a family office that invests in lower-market consumer businesses, and author of "The Entrepreneurial Instinct: How Everyone Has the Innate Ability to Start a Successful Small Business," and Aja Brown, the mayor of Compton, Calif. Their discussion took place in Atlanta at the 2015 Hope Global Forum, presented by Operation Hope.

Aja Brown, the mayor of Compton, Calif., says introducing young people to what's possible, so that they don't feel limited by their current circumstances, is a way of continuing the mission that Martin Luther King Jr. started. Brown was a featured speaker at the recent Hope Global Forum, which focused on the theme of financial inclusion. She was there to discuss several initiatives underway in Compton, including one with the University of Southern California to offer industry-specific employment training.

Banks need outside help to deliver credit to the underserved, says Tim Wennes, the West Coast president of MUFG Union Bank, who shares advice on what kind of partners to seek and how to vet them.

The credit card delinquency rate remained steady in Q4 compared with a year earlier, while total outstanding credit card balance increased 5%. The increase indicates record growth, the highest yearly jump seen since 2008, according to a TransUnion report.

Rallying bank employees to participate in outreach projects takes hard work in the beginning, but their involvement is essential to building a rapport with the community, OneWest Bank CEO Joseph Otting says.

There are some fairly basic, decisive steps banks could take to educate people outside the financial mainstream, and it would make banking more profitable, says John Bryant, the chairman and CEO of the nonprofit Operation Hope.