Banking

Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey has asked the Department of Education to forgive the school loans of hundreds of students from the state enrolled at Corinthian Colleges Inc., a for-profit company investigated by federal authorities for practices that left many students deeply in debt.

Union Bankshares in Richmond, Va., and Entegra Financial in Franklin, N.C., are rebranding their banks.

Social Finance, an alternative lender that has made its name in student loans, has branched out into unsecured personal loans.

WASHINGTON — Bankers, technology CEOs and President Obama are throwing everything they have at countering the threat of cyber attacks, but based on a White House summit Friday on the issue, it's far from clear that it will be enough.

A hacker group has stolen as much as $1 billion from banks and other financial companies worldwide since 2013 in an "unprecedented cyber-robbery," according to computer security firm Kaspersky Lab.

Racial disparity in small-business loans remains glaring, despite some improvement. Lenders' unfamiliarity with African-American communities is part of the problem, but so is the need for financial education among prospective borrowers.

Loan demand, which bankers say remained weak well after the recession, is picking up, and the industry is adjusting business models to meet it. But banks may want to act fast.

Bankers, technology CEOs and President Obama are throwing everything they have at countering the growing threat of cyber attacks, putting their faith in biometrics, tokenization and data sharing. But it's far from clear that it will be enough.

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Georgia state regulators on Friday closed the $272 million-asset Capitol City Bank & Trust Co., in Atlanta, the third institution to fail this year.

Athens Federal Community Bank has applied for a national bank charter as it broadens its focus beyond residential mortgage lending.

New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman has introduced a bill that would impose new regulations on employers that pay workers through payroll cards.

Branch closings draw big headlines, but several large banks are entering new markets — or bulking up in underrepresented cities — by adding branches and hiring lenders. Bank of America, for instance, is planning a retail push in Denver and Minneapolis.

A recap of the informed opinions (and the discussions they generated) on BankThink this week.

Just three years ago, CEO David Nelms heralded the purchase of LendingTree Loans as a milestone in Discover's evolution from a strict credit-card company to a broad-based consumer lender. Now he is hinting that it might exit the mortgage business.

Lenders including Bank of America and Citigroup are accelerating their sales of soured U.S. mortgages as investment firms compete to buy the debt.

When it comes to mobile banking technology firm Digital Insight's new replacement for passwords, the "eyes" have it.

BBVA Compass is planning to issue a new credit card in partnership with American Express and the National Basketball Association.

The company is addressing a problem more institutions will face as consumers increasingly bank from mobile devices. Application performance management software also helps Comerica deal with problems throughout its infrastructure.

Lenders are seeing higher demand for homes but are expecting only modest growth in sales this year due to the limited housing stock.