Banking

Citizens Financial Group in Providence, R.I., has hired Russell Herakovich to lead the national expansion of its health care banking group.

American Banker readers share their views on the most pressing banking topics of the week. Comments are excerpted from reader response sections of AmericanBanker.com articles and from our social media platforms.

Blue Harbour Group, an activist investor fund, has amassed a 5.7% stake in Investors Bancorp in New Jersey.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has chosen a dozen firms involved in the mortgage industry for a pilot program looking at whether electronic fillings can improve the mortgage closing process.

Chemical Financial in Midland, Mich., and First National Bank of Omaha in Nebraska have partnered to market and issue a new rewards-based MasterCard.

Bryn Mawr Bank in Pennsylvania has agreed to buy Powers Craft Parker & Beard, an insurance broker and risk management consulting firm.

Brian Moynihan has been in charge of Bank of America for nearly five years, and he has spent most of that time in lawyer mode, overseeing settlements worth $48 billion. He is generally praised for taking the bank to this point, but now comes the hard part: getting B of A to grow again.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and Federal Trade Commission filed an amicus brief in the case of Hernandez v. Williams, Zinman & Parham, which concerns the interpretation and enforcement of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act.

Payment Alliance International reached an agreement with SchoolsFirst Federal Credit Union to apply its brand to 109 automated teller machines located in Rite Aid pharmacies throughout Los Angeles.

The theft of 4.5 million customer records from Community Health Systems could bring a wave of identity theft and illustrates the need to eradicate the Heartbleed bug from banks' networks.

A generation shift could also create issues for community banks that are in search of fee income.

Bank of America Corp. will pay $245 million to settle U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission allegations that it failed to disclose rising mortgage losses and the risks of bonds tied to home loans.

The invention of baby carrots transformed Americans' vegetable-eating habits. Banks need to shake up their products and services in a similarly unique way if they hope to differentiate themselves, according to Bill Early of PlumDog Financial.

Staff from Alliance Credit Union walked through the debris in the troubled city of Ferguson, Mo., Wednesday, asking business owners if they needed a 0% loan.

A former Minnesota debt collector was sentenced Wednesday to 15 years in federal prison.

Stoneleigh Recovery Associates, based in Lombard, Ill., has acquired R&B Collections Inc. of Roswell, Ga. in a deal funded through a mix of cash on hand and new debt.

Some politicians and regulators appear determined to shrink big banks. But doing so could hurt Americans who appreciate big banks' geographical reach and wide range of services, according to financial markets scholar Stephen Matteo Miller.

A nursing home located in New Rochelle, N.Y. will pay $2.2 million to settle allegations that the business and its owner submitted more than 62,000 inflated claims to the New York State Medicaid Program.

Bank of America Corp. (BAC) will pay $16.65 billion to end federal and state probes into mortgage bond sales, the harshest penalty yet related to loans that fueled the 2008 financial crisis, the Justice Department said.

The errors - attributed to software purchased by a vendor - resulted in inaccurate customer credit information being reported to the credit bureaus. The CFPB warns that blaming vendors for technical snafus is not acceptable.