Banking

What lies ahead for the banking industry this year? Here's what analysts and investors are tracking after the latest bank earnings reports.

The Charleston-based company agreed to pay $267 million to acquire Piedmont Bank in Peachtree Corners, Georgia. It's United's 34th deal, but the first since 2021.

The Puerto Rico-based company's board of directors has given an additional title to COO Javier Ferrer, naming him president as of May 9. His career path closely resembles that of his boss, CEO Ignacio Alvarez.

Truist Financial completes the sale of its remaining stake in Truist Insurance Holdings; City National Bank has hired Rick Bechtel as executive vice president and head of mortgage and residential lending; Associated Bank names Chun Schiros as its first chief analytics officer; and more in the weekly banking news roundup.

American Heritage Federal Credit Union in Philadelphia plans to acquire three branches and $105 million of deposits from Linkbancorp. The deal is part of a growing number of transactions involving credit unions buying whole banks or portions of their branch networks.

Many banks got shares in the lucrative payments network when it went public in 2008. Some of them are now looking to sell in order to offset losses on their sales of underwater bonds.

Depositors are still flocking to online-only banking platforms offered by companies such as Ally, Capital One and Discover. But overall customer satisfaction took a "statistically significant" drop, according to a new J.D. Power report.

Executives of Allegiant, Breeze and Spirit complained to the heads of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and Department of Transportation that the relationships between big banks and big airlines are anticompetitive. Consumer advocates also questioned whether large airlines are delivering on promised rewards and if consumers are racking up debt to accrue miles and points.

A group of 24 institutional investors say a recent pledge by the British bank to restrict financing for companies that focus exclusively on fossil-fuel exploration and extraction doesn't go far enough.

Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria SA took its offer for Banco de Sabadell SA directly to shareholders, a rare hostile move that the Spanish government said it opposed on concerns over job cuts and reduced competition. 

After a California woman spent more than a decade obtaining reparations for Nazi plundering of her family's belongings, the money disappeared from her bank account. Her saga highlights a gap in fraud cases between what consumers expect from their banks and what those banks are in a position to deliver.

Consumer debt aggregators such as Method, Payitoff, Spinwheel and Tally are partnering with financial institutions to embed solutions that aggregate account information and devise ways to optimize repayment — including with low-interest offers from the bank itself.

Bank stocks are up this year as interest rates have leveled off and there are hopes that pressure on lenders' profits could moderate.

There is fundamental work involved in laying a modern data foundation and adopting a flexible, data-driven, cloud-based IT architecture suitable for AI implementation. Most banks aren't there yet.

OakNorth Bank in London is eager to utilize the data it's collected from providing risk management software to American banks over the past five years. Its growth plans include eventually acquiring a charter here and making commercial real estate loans.

Thousands of consumers had to wait more than 90 days for funds after their accounts were suddenly closed, according to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

As the Federal Housing Finance Agency considers revising Federal Home Loan bank membership standards, it should consider the benefits of scale that large member banks make possible.