Auto lending

Auto title loans in California grew by more than 10% in number and dollar value last year and the market has almost doubled since 2011, according to a new report.

WASHINGTON — The Federal Reserve Bank of Boston reached a broad agreement with the U.S. affiliate of Spanish powerhouse Banco Santander calling for improvements in internal risk management, liquidity and capital adequacy controls.

The Detroit automaker's lending arm is teaming up with a peer-to-peer car-sharing app — a move that could foreshadow changes in how the industry underwrites auto loans.

California Republic Bancorp in Irvine has securitized and sold $390 million in notes backed by prime automobile loans.

Despite some silver lining, analysts say the Supreme Court decision upholding "disparate impact" in fair-lending disputes will only embolden activists and regulators to bring more cases.

The powerful Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is helping to reshape mortgage and payday lending, but its attempts to curb abuses in auto lending have been largely stymied by the clout of car dealers and the fragmented nature of auto finance.

BB&T's auto-finance division will stop dealers from marking up the price on sales contracts, and instead will offer a flat-fee compensation program.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau issued a final rule Wednesday that allows it to monitor the biggest nonbank auto finance companies.

Demand for automobile loans has soared to new levels, Equifax said in a Thursday report. Meanwhile, delinquencies of 60 days or more have hit their lowest point in nearly a decade.

At a time when regulators, prosecutors and the media have stepped up their scrutiny of subprime auto lending, some in the industry have changed their definitions of key terms in ways that downplay the risks involved.

Exeter Financial has hired Freddie Mac executive Paige H. Wisdom to be its chief financial officer.

Orchard Platform in New York has added two nonbank lenders to its marketplace lending service that matches institutional investors with loan originators.

Banks and consumer groups are both eagerly awaiting an FCC decision about whether to loosen federal restrictions on robo-calling consumers. A $10.2 million settlement announced this week involving JPMorgan Chase brought the issue back to the forefront.

Many lenders shy away from adjusting monthly payments based on struggling borrowers' income for fear of losing too much money, but the Education Department's expansion of such plans for student loans and new data-crunching products have reframed the longtime discussion.

U.S. consumers in the first quarter borrowed more to pay for education and automobiles, but overall their debt burden was relatively flat, according to a new report from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

The loss of a key partnership with General Motors has left Ally Financial searching for new revenue streams. In the short term, the bank has ramped up its subprime auto lending, but to sustain its growth it must "get more out of customer relationships," says CEO Jeffrey Brown.

Millions of dollars spent on software upgrades are worth the hit to short-term profits, executives at the Buffalo bank said, because it will be able to run deeper credit profiles of borrowers.

The growth-minded regional bank is biding its time until rates rise and its M&A deals close by slowing riskier types of lending and diversifying its income sources.

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After releasing successive studies on the payday industry over the past two years, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is finally set to unveil Thursday sweeping proposals that could fundamentally change the business of short-term loans and other products