Retail & Commercial

Sales of U.S.-backed mortgage bonds soared to a three-year high as steps by the Federal Reserve and Obama administration to make home ownership more affordable propelled a 34 percent jump in refinancing.

Capital, cost-cuts and creativity. Those are three things banks, especially small ones, will need to ride out a period of low margins and stiff regulation until economic conditions improve, says BankUnited CEO John Kanas.

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority has sanctioned five firms for charging additional fees on municipal and state bond offerings to pay a lobbying organization.

Red River Bancshares in Alexandria, La., plans to expand into the Baton Rouge area with a deal to buy Fidelity Bancorp.

Developing and implementing programs that accurately detect consumer vulnerabilities in the marketplace is important to better manage risk at financial institutions and for public policy purposes.

In the most challenging banking environment in memory, BankUnited's John Kanas expects the winners to be those companies most adept at amassing capital, cutting costs and figuring out the innovation puzzle.

OceanFirst Financial in Toms River, N.J., expects to increase its fourth-quarter loan-loss provision because of Hurricane Sandy and new regulatory guidance for borrowers who have filed for bankruptcy.

The industry returned to sustainable (albeit tepid) profitability this year and housing appears to have bottomed. Regulatory fines and litigation continue to cast a pall on the future, however.

Wells Fargo won a partial victory in its appeal of an order to reimburse $203 million of overdraft charges. It can order debit transactions how it wants, but consumers still have a case that they were misled, an appeals court ruled.

Fraud and data security trends can change by the minute, often making it difficult to pinpoint a specific development as a key event during the course of a year. Not so in 2012.