Banking

Top industry executives said this week that price increases are abating, even if they haven't yet fully abated. Their remarks reflect increased confidence that the Federal Reserve will hold interest rates steady — or perhaps even cut them — in the first half of 2024.

The Georgia-based bank says it's expanding its relationship with GreenSky, a home improvement lender that Goldman Sachs bought in 2022 but put up for sale a year later. The deal will bring a one-time revenue boost and a recurring fee income stream.

The bank in Richmond, Virginia, failed to properly disclose its overdraft practices to roughly 8,500 consumers who enrolled by phone or in branches from 2017 to 2020, according to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The company admitted no wrongdoing.

Leaders of the Dallas-based crypto services platform BankSocial hope to further decentralized finance concepts throughout the industry by using distributed ledger technology to support the proposed Defy Federal Credit Union's offerings of a deposit account and cryptocurrency services.

Only 111 credit unions currently use The Clearing House's real-time payments platform, out of nearly 5,000 nationwide, but having the world's largest credit union in the system could lead more to join.

The multiple potential applications of generative artificial intelligence to the financial services industry are a huge opportunity — for the institutions prepared to adapt.

The Ohio-based regional bank has laid out an ambitious expansion blueprint, including new health care asset-based lending, a Native American financial services unit and a push into commercial banking in North Carolina and South Carolina.

The megabank, which is in the midst of a massive restructuring, will probably book "a couple of hundred million dollars" of restructuring charges in the fourth quarter, according to its chief financial officer.

Frustrated by its inability to overcome loan-servicing mistakes that triggered three separate regulatory consent orders, Discover Financial Services elected to sell its student loan business. "When we looked at it, we have perennial issues in our ability to service that portfolio," a top executive said.

Equity, based in Wichita, Kansas, has agreed to buy the parent company of the Bank of Kirksville. The combined company would have $5.4 billion of assets and 74 branches, including 23 in Missouri.

Too few lenders are underwriting unsecured consumer debt, which could help borrowers pay down credit card balances with little risk to lenders.

The nation's largest bank has already completed many of the branch closings that can boost its earnings, leaving it with "less and less accretive opportunities to consolidate," according to a top executive.

The North Carolina-based bank is considering the idea of selling a portion of its securities portfolio as a way to build capital, CEO Bill Rogers said Tuesday. At the end of the third quarter, Truist's securities were worth about 20% less than what the company paid for them.

The passage of a Congressional Review Act resolution to rescind the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's small-business data collection rule may be only symbolic, but the rule is designed to detect and stop discrimination — something everyone should support.

The Pennsylvania bank has agreed to sell its Exchange Underwriters subsidiary to World Insurance Associates for $30.5 million, saying that the deal will help pad its capital and liquidity.

The two companies announced the deal more than a year ago and had anticipated closing it in the first half of 2023. But advocacy groups have urged regulators to withhold approval, arguing that it will hurt consumers.

United Federal Credit Union plans to enter the state through a merger next year, and that could be a problem for Keystone-state banks and credit unions that are already struggling to grow.

A small bank stock index posted its biggest gain of the year in early November before that progress faded. What will it take for investors to sustain confidence in the sector?

Rep. Maxine Waters pressed executives from City National Bank, PNC Financial Services and Wells Fargo on opening branches in her California district and upholding promises made from recent merger agreements or consent orders.

The Toronto-based company is now forecasting more than $800 million USD in annual cost savings as a result of its Bank of the West acquisition in February. That's up nearly 20% from an earlier projection.