Banking

First National Bank of Omaha is preparing to host its second hackathon to foster new ideas — and relationships with coders who could end up working from the bank.

Camden Fine at the Independent Community Bankers of America believes entrepreneurial bankers will return to starting new banks in the latter half of this decade as the industry adjusts to the new business conditions and as consolidation creates voids.

Apple Inc. will add new security features after the accounts of celebrities using its services were hacked and photographs of them were posted on the Internet.

Today's hackers are "extremely sophisticated" and banks need to work hard to keep pace with their methods of attack, warns James Sills, who recently left his job as chief information officer for the state of Delaware to become CEO of a small bank in North Carolina.

Bankers criticize credit unions' tax-exempt status because they fear they are losing ground to member-owned financial cooperatives, writes the Credit Union National Association's Bill Hampel.

A class-action settlement resolving claims that Bank of America violated the Telephone Consumer Protection Act received a federal district court's final approval - with some changes. The dollar amount, while large, is less than half of a recent record case involving Capital One.

While the average debt among Canadians increased when compared to the same quarter last year, the national delinquency rate reached its lowest level since 2008.

As hackers pierced JPMorgan Chase & Co.'s defenses in June, the bank's cybersecurity chief was just getting acquainted with his employer and its sprawling technology infrastructure.

First Mountain Bank in Big Bear Lake, Calif., is looking to replace a pair of bankers who collectively have more than 80 years of industry experience.

BancorpSouth in Tupelo, Miss., has been hit with a consent order tied to compliance weaknesses tied to the Bank Secrecy Act and the Patriot Act.

Russia's Sberbank is offering a "cat housewarming delivery service" to new mortgage borrowers in an effort to ditch its staid reputation, writes Austin Kilgore of National Mortgage News.

Wells Fargo Bank plans to lay off 115 call center employees at a facility in Roanoke County, Va. as a result of reductions in delinquencies and foreclosures, according to a spokeswoman.

Kearny Financial in Kearny, N.J., has adopted a plan to convert to a public stock company.

Real estate agents have a lot of advice for mortgage lenders about how to do their job better, according to a new TD Bank survey.

USAA and Mitek Systems settled a two-and-a-half year-old dispute over who invented the technology for mobile check deposit, with both companies' patents remaining intact and neither side paying the other.

First Niagara Financial Group in Buffalo, N.Y., has consolidated several consumer-banking business lines into one department.

A large shareholder at Valley Community Bank is objecting to the Pleasanton, Calif., company's sale to FNB Bancorp in South San Francisco.

A judge has ruled that the involuntary bankruptcy of FMB Bancshares in Lakeland, Ga., may proceed, a decision that could embolden more trust-preferred creditors to pursue a similar strategy.

BBVA Compass Bancshares in Birmingham, Ala., plans to hire 10 community relations officers to help improve its community reinvestment record.

Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase will face narrower claims in a lawsuit accusing them and 10 other banks of conspiring to limit competition in the credit-default swaps market.