Retail & Commercial

Delinquencies have continued to decline, pointing to chargeoff rates that could be 40 to 90 basis points lower in the third quarter than they were in the first quarter at the Big Six.

State Bank & Trust in Fargo, N.D., is changing its name to avoid confusion with the dozens of banks in its markets that have similar names.

Gerald Host, Trustmark's CEO, expressed confidence in his company's purchase of BancTrust despite some analysts' concerns about the seller's weak deposit positions in key Alabama markets.

First Financial Northwest in Renton, Wash., and Stilwell Partners are both claiming victory following last week's annual meeting. A representative for the activist shareholder has threatened a legal challenge if its nominee isn't added to the board.

Wells Fargo (WFC) is planning to add up to 200 jobs at its call center in Salem, Ore., and M&T Bank (MTB) of Buffalo, N.Y., intends to hire as many as 30 new employees in the Albany, N.Y., area, according to local news reports.

Politicians and regulators want taxpayers to believe two things: first, that financial crisis had multiple complex causes mostly related to excessive risk-taking, conflicts of interest and deregulation — a view unconvincingly supported by the exculpatory 662 page summary Report of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission; second, that public regulation is a sisyphean task requiring the 2313 page Dodd-Frank Act. This diagnosis and prescription are both wrong.

The Center for Plain Language, a watchdog group, says the bank's merchant card payment-processing agreement was the worst thing written by any company, charity or government agency in the past year.

The House Financial Services Committee is set to vote on a bill that would benefit just one institutions: Emigrant Bank, whose CEO Howard Milstein has made contributions to many of the bill's co-sponsors. And people wonder why Americans are cynical about politicians.

Two directors have resigned, and the Floyd, Va., company's CEO is on administrative leave. Those departures come less than a week after a coalition of angry investors led by Douglas Schaller replaced half of the six-member board.

TD Retail Card Services has agreed to create and administer the private-label credit card program for Canadian furniture retailer Bombay & Co.