Retail & Commercial

Southwest Bancorp in Stillwater, Okla., and Bank of Kentucky in Crestview Hills have completed exits from the Troubled Asset Relief Program.

DataCash, a MasterCard payments processing subsidiary, and Redecard will partner to sell electronic commerce products to merchants in Brazil.

Credit bureaus and payment companies are testing ways to use social media – say, a Facebook Inc. post about a recently purchased Corvette – to verify a person’s identity and even assess consumer creditworthiness.

LevelUp has made constant changes to its mobile-payments technology as it has aggressively spread its system to new consumers and merchants alike. Today, it is in the process of eliminating issues by replacing its older systems and is promoting a white-label app to appeal to more merchants.

Foreclosure-related U.S. home sales fell 22 percent in the first quarter from a year earlier as rising prices reduced the incentive to sell for owners who owe more than their properties are worth, RealtyTrac said.

CardSpring and VeriFone Systems Inc. allow consumers' credit and debit cards to act as loyalty cards for redeeming digital coupons.

Community banks and credit unions now have two years to continue originating balloon loans to all customers, a major change from a prior proposal that would have banned such loans except in rural or underserved markets.

Banco Sabadell in Spain has agreed to buy Lloyds Banking Group’s international private banking business in Miami.

Visa issuers have put 3.5 million chip-based smart cards in the hands of U.S. consumers since the card brand announced its EMV-card migration roadmap in August of 2011, a Visa executive says.

While banks hit a landmark with their $40.3 billion in earnings, it appeared partly due to idiosyncratic transactions at big banks and was not a sign of a resurgent industry.