Retail & Commercial

The nation's highest court is expected to announce Monday whether it will hear arguments in a case with the potential to dramatically lower banks' exposure to allegations of lending discrimination.

The $625 million-asset BNCF Financial will pay about $5 million in cash for the $75 million-asset Wilton. BNC Financial said it expects no tangible book value dilution after the deal is completed.

The public's confidence in U.S. banks is up five percentage points from a year earlier, to 26%, according to a poll released Friday by Gallup.

F.N.B. Corp. in Hermitage, Pa., has agreed to buy BCSB Bancorp in Baltimore in a stock transaction valued at $79 million, or $23.77 a share. The acquisition is the company's third in less than eight months.

Visa Inc. sued Wal-Mart Stores Inc. in a bid to stop the world's largest retailer from filing a lawsuit to press price-fixing claims over merchant swipe fees.

Debt buyer Encore Capital Group Inc. on Thursday closed its $200 million acquisition of Asset Acceptance Capital Corp. All subsidiaries of Asset Acceptance are part of Encore Capital and Asset Acceptance’s stock, NASDAQ ticker symbol AACC, has been delisted.

Federal regulators must not rely on standard measures of differences between outcome rates without considering the way those measures change simply because the frequency of an outcome changes.

Washington Trust Bancorp in Westerly, R.I., has tapped one of its executives to become head of wealth management at its bank.

Prudential Bancorp in Philadelphia is planning a second-step conversion.

Banks providing cash back on transactions as an incentive for credit card use have a better chance of seeing their account become the "top of wallet" card, a new Auriemma Consulting Group report says.