Banking

The Federal Housing Finance Agency is considering reforms to force-placed insurance aimed at giving the public a better deal. So why isn't it letting the public in on its planning?

Bank investors may be softening their antipathy for long earn-back periods. When Union First Market Bankshares promised five years of dilution – but a big boost to earnings – from its deal for StellarOne, its stock declined only a little.

Barry Sommers, the new head of JPMorgan Chase's consumer bank, spent most of his career selling wealth-management services. Now he says he's ready to serve the bank's less-affluent customers.

Apple's one nod to payments during its keynote address at this year's Worldwide Developers Conference is its plan to store users' credit card info in a new iCloud keychain for online shopping.

Community banks can't cost cut their way to prosperity, though it certainly is a step in the right direction, a recent Fiserv study found.

PNC Financial Services Group is latest bank that plans to do away with free checking.

The National Security Agency's PRISM surveillance program has sparked a major outcry over phone monitoring, but the less-publicized government accumulation of credit card and other payments data can provide far more granular intelligence, according to payments experts.

Microsoft confirmed that the company will eliminate Microsoft Points, its digital currency, in favor of pricing digital content in local currencies.

A top executive at Heartland Financial in Dubuque, Iowa, is leaving for a job in the manufacturing sector.

A sales pitch from Bank of America implies that its refinancing offer is in the borrower's best interest. Never mind that it would raise the customer's interest rate and add 10 years to the overall life of the loan.

Pennsylvania Dutch country could get the first de novo bank to open in the U.S. in more than two years.

Wells Fargo unveiled a rebuilt website Monday that includes more robust financial educational articles and a new design aimed at easing navigation of the site on various form factors, an approach that other retail banks have taken in recent months.

The $120 billion-asset company has made a tender offer for certain debt of Union Planters Preferred Funding, a REIT subsidiary that it then plans to dissolve, it said Monday.

MasterCard will make the card network's Expert Monitoring Fraud Scoring for Merchants available to Kount's merchant clients.

The $168 million-asset asset lender is offering as many as 500,000 shares at $10 per share, it announced Monday. The stock closed Friday at $9.85 a share; it had risen 1.5%, to $10, at midday Monday.

West Bancorp. (WTBA) in Des Moines, Iowa, is taking advantage of low interest rates to buy back a chunk of its stock.

Research indicates education from a counselor who helps homeowners understand the terms of their mortgages should be part of the formula for sustainable homeownership.

The banking unit of FNB United in Asheboro, N.C., has been freed from a regulatory order and has completed its integration of the Bank of Granite.

Huntington Bancshares (HBAN) has hired Jeff Sturm, a financial technology veteran most recently with Fiserv, to find ways to improve customer service and contain costs.

Meta Financial Group (CASH) in Sioux Falls, S.D., plans to raise up to $20 million by selling common stock.