Retail & Commercial

Community Health Systems, a for-profit hospital operator, will pay the federal government to resolve allegations that it submitted false claims for short-stay admissions.

While bankers' reputation as the unquestioned authorities on financial services may be changing, the importance of face-to-face interactions has not lessened, according to contributor Dave Martin.

Municipal Collections of America will recover outstanding parking ticket fines and unpaid civil penalties for red-light violations in Tuscaloosa, Ala. under a contract city council members approved this week.

Independent Bank in Rockland, Mass., has agreed to buy Peoples Federal Bancshares in Brighton.

Anchor Bancorp in Madison, Wis., is back on solid ground with federal regulators.

Ocean Shore Holding in New Jersey has completed a buyback of 200,000 shares of its common stock and has authorized an additional repurchase program.

Stronger margins are no automatic byproduct of next year's anticipated increase in interest rates. Higher rates are expected to spark a runoff of deposits at various banks, and some of those banks are more vulnerable than others to steep losses of low-cost funding.

Citigroup's $285 million mortgage-securities pact with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission was approved by a judge whose earlier rejection of the accord was assailed by a federal appeals court.

Third-party debt collectors recovered $55.2 billion last year for creditor and government clients, returning to them an estimated $45 billion.

Banks with at least $10 billion in assets are becoming more aggressive when it comes to giving out small business loans, but the group still approves credit at a much smaller rate than its competitors, a Biz2Credit study found.