Retail & Commercial

The FDIC is trying to help bankers prep for exams and more clearly understand the results as part of a broader effort at improving relations, Martin Gruenberg, the agency's acting Chairman, said.

Bank Marketing Strategy blogger Jim Marous, former senior director of marketing services at Harland Clarke, has been recruited to direct marketing agency New Control.

Level One Bancorp in Farmington Hills, Mich., is applying its experience working on failed banks to buy and integrate one that is merely struggling. Patrick Fehring, the company's CEO, says that experience integrating failed banks has prepared Level One to buy the struggling Oxford Bank.

The Basel III capital proposals would severely restrict already weak lending at community banks and has to be changed, panelists said at American Banker's Regulatory Symposium. But international politics and legal requirements will make them hard to change, they acknowledged.

Google says use of its mobile wallet app has more than doubled since it modified Google Wallet to more easily allow consumers to link their credit and debit cards.

Apple has — yet again — left payments out when it designed its newest iPhone, despite numerous indications that it explored using Near Field Communication technology to create a mobile wallet. Apple had many good reasons to choose the course it did.

Mary Miller, the U.S. Treasury under secretary for domestic finance, praised the Dodd-Frank Act in a speech at American Banker's Regulatory Symposium Friday.

Regulators should re-examine how they classify deposits, or more banks could be classified as troubled. That was the view of a panel on the Transaction Account Guarantee program at American Banker's Regulatory Symposium.

By prodding Freddie Mac to pursue more loan putbacks, the FHFA's inspector general has proven itself willing and able to force confrontation between the GSEs and their customers.

Tri-Valley Bank in San Ramon, Calif., has completed a private placement that it said will shore up regulatory capital and support growth.