Banking

The heads of U.S. Bancorp (USB) and Bank of America (BAC) have been re-elected to the board of The Clearing House, a payments company and trade group owned by the largest U.S. banks.

Utah-based Ally Bank has expanded its use of Fiserv's Popmoney person-to-person payments service. It now lets consumers send and receive funds from within the bank's mobile banking app.

Mercantile Bank (MBWM) in Grand Rapids, Mich., expects regulatory hang-ups to delay its acquisition of Firstbank (FBMI) in Alma, Mich.

The cap on the size of mortgages that government-sponsored enterprises can guarantee will remain unchanged at the start of 2014.

Colonial Savings, a mortgage-servicing firm, installed new mortgage software and consequently tripled loan volume, cut costs and improved compliance without reducing headcount.

A plan to sell a Dallas bank to an investor group through a bankruptcy auction could lead to big losses for groups that made investments at the height of the economic crisis.

French market regulator Autorité? des Marché?;s Financiers (AMF) has adopted a new market surveillance tool by business analytics software provider SAS.

ING Direct clients in Canada can now access online government services using their existing ING login names and passwords thanks to the company's partnership with authentication service provider SecureKey.

Both the credit card delinquency rate (the ratio of borrowers 90 days or more delinquent on their general purpose credit cards) and the average credit card debt per borrower dropped on a yearly basis in the third quarter ended September 30, according to credit reporting agency TransUnion.

WASHINGTON — Higher interest rates and elevated litigation expenses at one large bank last quarter led to the industry's first year-over-year earnings decline in more than four years.

Capital One Financial (COF) has a new chief of Canadian operations, Shane Holdaway.

Alliance Bancorp Inc. of Pennsylvania (ALLB) in Broomall will face a proxy challenge from activist investor PL Capital.

First Merchants (FRME) in Muncie, Ind., has exited the Small Business Lending Fund.

ViewPoint Financial (VPFG) in Plano, Texas, has agreed to buy LegacyTexas Group in Plano.

The Amazon Coins digital currency is now available for consumers in the U.K. and Germany to buy mobile applications and make in-app purchases on the Kindle Fire tablet and on Amazon.com Inc.'s regional app stores.

U.S. residential properties sold at an estimated annualized pace of 5,649,965, a 2% increase from the previous month and up 13% from October 2012, according to RealtyTrac.

The president and chief executive of Sun Bancorp (SNBC) in Vineland, N.J., is stepping down at the behest of the board.

A longtime chairman and chief executive at HomeTrust BancShares (HTBI) in Asheville, N.C., has retired.

The positive reaction to Independent Bank Group's $170 million agreement to buy BOH Holdings shows how precrisis M&A valuation methods are returning and that the industry is getting stronger.

A former employee at an Ohio branch of U.S. Bancorp (USB) pleaded guilty Friday to charges that he accepted $24,000 in kickbacks from debt collectors in exchange for giving them business.