Retail & Commercial

The company posted a 58% increase in net income, fueled by increased loan demand from both consumers and businesses, as pandemic fears ease. It expects strong GDP growth through next year.

Wells Fargo beat analysts’ expectations for third-quarter profit, another positive sign for Chief Executive Charlie Scharf’s turnaround efforts, but expenses were higher than anticipated and loans fell.

Bank of America beat analysts’ earnings estimates as fees climbed at the company’s dealmaking unit, boosted by a record-breaking period for mergers and acquisitions.

Spending on cards continued to increase during the third quarter, while loan balances rose slightly and payment rates began to return to more normal levels. A top company executive expressed confidence that loan growth will pick up but said, “It’s going to take time.”

The San Francisco bank reported a 26% increase in its third-quarter earnings, thanks to robust single-family, multifamily and commercial real estate loan activity in New York, Boston and its home city.

Even financial institutions that have updated their practices still don’t hit the basic benchmarks of transparency and fairness.

Total loans increased 6% from a year earlier, driven by gains in the company's asset- and wealth-management arm and corporate and investment bank, though consumer and commercial lending fell. Fees from advising on merger and acquisition deals almost tripled.

Executives at Umpqua Holdings and Columbia Banking System said the deal could progress more slowly than usual because of a perceived approval backlog at the Federal Reserve. The two Pacific Northwest-based banks are seeking to combine into a $50 billion-asset company.

More banks are boosting salaries to lure and keep workers in a highly competitive hiring market, but the pressure is on to trim expenses elsewhere to offset the pay hikes.

Silvio Tavares, the former chief executive of the Digital Commerce Alliance, will lead the credit-bureau analytics firm.