Banking

Bay Banks of Virginia in Kilmarnock has increased the size of its fourth-quarter loss, after a commercial borrower pleaded guilty to creating false financial statements.

The subprime consumer lender currently rejects many of its personal loan applicants. It hopes to qualify more borrowers by offering cash to those who are willing to put their cars up as collateral.

Freedom Bank in Columbia Falls, Mont., has been released from a consent order that the FDIC and the Montana Division of Banking and Financial Institutions had implemented in December 2009.

First Sentry Bancshares in Huntington, W.Va., said it will pay $7.4 million in cash and stock to buy the $75 million-asset Rock Branch Community Bank in Nitro, W.Va.

The ongoing battle between the FBI and Apple over encryption could have consequences not only for iPhone and mobile banking security, but overall software security and the privacy of customer records, according to David Weiss, senior analyst at Aite Group.

ChoiceOne Financial Services in Sparta, Mich., has given its president, Kelly Potes, the job of chief executive, too.

A program recently started in New York helps entrepreneurs improve their business plans and cash flow before sending them to a bank. The nonprofit lender behind the program, meanwhile, hopes to boost small-business borrowers' credit scores and lower their rates.

Some of today's credit products and practices risk leaving consumers trapped in a cycle of debt.

The Urban Institute has released a report reviewing data from 118 million homeowners and 127 million renters to help understand how mortgages relate to other consumer debts.

San Francisco Fed President John Williams discusses the potential for new fintech products to make predatory lending easier, whether big banks need to be broken up, and the likelihood of another recession.

Hometown Community Bancorp in Morton, Ill., has agreed to buy Illini Corp. in Springfield, Ill.

Mid Penn Bancorp in Millersburg, Pa., has hired Michael Peduzzi as chief financial officer.

Community Financial Corp. in Waldorf, Md., has agreement to support a director nominated by the activist investor Basswood Capital Management.

The CFPB's annual report to Congress updates the current status of proposed debt collection rules and lists four key themes that emerged from the more than 23,000 comments received after the CFPB’s 2013 debt collection Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking.

Royal Financial in Chicago has agreed to sell $25.8 million of distressed assets associated with its pending purchase of Park Bancorp in Chicago.

Banks have to know a lot about their customers, who generally trust them to keep personal information secure. Who better to serve as digital identity providers in a post-password world?

Though the use of a digital identity may take years to go mainstream with consumers, BBVA Compass is thinking about the role that banks should play and taking steps toward being part of the solution.

Ryan Singer, CEO and cofounder of startup Blockchain Health, discusses the problems with the traditional "shared secrets" method of verifying identities, and the possibilities opened up by mobile computing devices.

The way we verify people are who they say they are must evolve to reflect new technologies like peer-to-peer platforms and the Internet of Things and the ways millennials live and work.

Around the world, technology companies, governments and even some banks are coming up with new, safer and easier ways for people to prove they are who they say they are. Generally the goal is to allow people to be authenticated once by a trusted identity provider (a role banks could play) rather than share sensitive information with countless third parties, as they do today. Here we highlight just a few of the many organizations innovating in this space.