Banking

The regulator said that the Bank of Lake Mills, Freedom Stores and Military Credit Services violated the FTC Act.

Janet Yellen says our economic growth depends on closing the gender wage gap. Fidelity talks about fostering innovation and Wells Fargo improves its mobile app. Plus, a soccer story.

Stellar, which started as a splinter group from Ripple, has formed a for-profit company called Lightyear.io to help financial institutions integrate its software.

Self Lender and Wela, two fintech startups, are making their marks on the savings app space by providing incentives to users to manage their money wisely.

Wells said slowing loan growth had hurt its aggressive efforts to lower its efficiency ratio, so it is doubling the expenses it aims to cut by 2019.

Brent Beardall, who recently took the helm at Washington Federal, discusses having excess capital, myriad potential fintech partners and why he would tweak — not repeal — Dodd-Frank.

The good news: SBA lending is going gangbusters and business owners are optimistic about growth prospects and their ability to access credit. The not-so-good news: Many firms are still not particularly interested in borrowing and startups are not the engines of job creation they once were.

Belpre Savings Bank and Doolin Security Savings Bank are planning to create a mutual with nearly $100 million in assets.

Fintech has upended parts of the banking industry and made old ways of doing business obsolete. But that's also what makes it an exciting time to be a banker, says Citizens Bank CEO Bruce Van Saun.

Financial institutions should begin to treat data not just as a means to implementing a business model, but as an integral and valuable part of the business model.

The roughly $2 million investment comes as banks keep joining (and in some cases, leaving) various distributed ledger projects as they try to pick the winners in a young field.

Despite some investor criticism, CEO retains support of chairman John McFarlane; consumer protection agency looks to extend regulatory reach.

Welcome to the PaymentsSource Morning Briefing, delivered daily. The information you need to start your day, including top headlines from PaymentsSource and around the Web. Today: RBS offshores; Mizuho collaborates on innovation; Fraud continues to spike; Europe examines 'IoT.'

With their big-picture view across multiple portfolios, some CUSOs are reporting an increased appetite for business loans and participations.

Noah Breslow, who drew opposition from a hedge fund that wants the online small-business lender to pursue a new course, won 84% of the vote Tuesday.

Citi says David Madaras sent a profane message that confirmed the name of a confidential client, but he says the messages were read out of order and misunderstood.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and Union Bank urged the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau on Wednesday to narrow its approach to collecting data on small-business lending, fearing it could add costs and compliance burdens.

Stonegate Bank in Florida figured its balance sheet was too small and undiversified to stay independent. But it was choosy in approaching potential buyers and aggressively scrutinized the lead bidder’s loan book.

Banks have warmed up to digital wealth management tools but will need to use their human advisers, too, to beat fintechs.

Through the bank’s new API, small-business customers can feed their bank data into Xero’s cloud accounting technology.