Banking

Many small and midsize firms consider overseas sales as crucial to sustained growth, and banks are responding by beefing up their trade-finance units.

Retailers are bombarded with new mobile payment methods. Many merchants chose to move forward with two or more new technologies rather than bet their future on just one mobile wallet.

The Township of Mount Holly, New Jersey and a local citizens' group are seeking to settle a dispute now before the Supreme Court that threatens to undercut the Obama administration's crackdown on alleged discrimination in lending.

The Office of the Comptroller Currency ordered JPMorgan Chase to refund fees to certain retirement account customers whom it steered into its own mutual funds. The move reflected regulators' broader concerns about conflicts of interest in its giant asset management business.

Regulators increasingly are holding banks accountable for the misdeeds of vendors and customers. The trend reflects a broadening of their definition of what constitutes safety, soundness and reputational risks to banks. For senior industry executives, the implications are that banks will be pressured to police the behavior not only of employees but of those they deal with outside the bank as well.

Rep. Jeb Hensarling is expected to unveil new mortgage finance reform legislation this month — an effort that has virtually no chance of becoming law this year, but one that will undoubtedly shape the housing debate.

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

The nation's biggest mutual thrift has endured litigation, activists' protests and a check-kiting scandal at Roma, a thrift it is trying to buy.

Senior executives at JPMorgan Chase and TD Bank predict that the Affordable Care Act, aka "Obamacare," will put some of their health care clients out of business but provide extra M&A advisory work.

The Federal Trade Commission filed suit in federal court to halt a mortgage relief scheme that allegedly deceived and preyed on distressed homeowners by charging them $2,000 to $4,000 based on bogus foreclosure rescue claims.

MasterCard Inc. asked the European Union’s highest court to overturn a regulatory decision on transaction fees that ended its ability to set rates on cross- border credit-card payments.

Community Bank Shares of Indiana in New Albany recorded a nearly $1 million charge in the second quarter for a failed-bank acquisition.

A high-tech crowdfunding firm plans to make investing in early-stage startups as easy as buying a stock on E-Trade.

Banking technology firm Temenos has launched a tool designed to help banks integrate new IT systems with existing software.

First Merchants (FRME) in Muncie, Ind., had healthy competition in its effort to buy CFS Bancorp (CITZ) in Munster, Ind.

Pathie McKee, the chief financial officer of ViewPoint Financial (VPFG), will step down on July 31. She will remain as a consultant through yearend, the Plano, Texas, company announced Wednesday.

Diebold is making its Opteva line of automatic teller machines available in Kenya, according to African news website Standard Digital.

The Chicago Transit Authority is planning an August launch for its new fare system that will allow retail and fare payments from the same card.The open standards fare system is called Ventra and was developed through a partnership between Cubic Transportation Systems, MasterCard and First Data. With it, Chicago transit riders can pay for fares on the city's elevated trains (called the "L"), buses and subway that are all operated by the CTA, as well as suburban bus line fares for routes operated by a separate transit authority called Pace.

Mortgage disclosures and supervision of non-bank entities will be top concerns for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau as it enters its third official year of operation, according to its semi-annual rulemaking agenda released Wednesday.

Wal-Mart and Home Depot are among the companies being investigated by the New York attorney general over fees charged employees on prepaid cards used as worker paychecks.