Banking

Taichung Commercial Bank said it would pay $82.1 million to buy American Continental Bancorp in suburban Los Angeles.

Small business banking can be BIG for the financial institutions willing to tap the opportunity in this fast-growing market.

A new report from American Banker's parent company finds that traditional banks are vulnerable to competition from online banks and fintechs such as PayPal and Square. It recommends that banks build deeper relationships with small-business owners by adding more products to their traditional suite of offerings.

When local prosecutors in Los Angeles investigated fake accounts at the San Francisco bank, they were hampered by a provision of state law that prevented them from issuing subpoenas before filing suit. That problem has been remedied under legislation signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom.

The America's Credit Union Museum recognized twenty prominent pioneers for their accomplishments and storied careers. It's the first such exhibit in the New Hampshire facility's 20-year history.

In this month's roundup of American Banker's favorite stories: Home appraisers get disillusioned, a couple lives mortgage-free for 13 years, digging into the cracks in credit quality, quantum computing's future in banking, and more.

The challenger banks Mercury and Nerve are offering networking events, tailored accounts, credit cards and more to attract a once neglected market.

JPMorgan Chase is starting to phase out an offering far more associated with old-fashioned bank branches than today's smartphone apps: safe deposit boxes. 

The company said a national search ended in its backyard with the hiring of Wisconsin veteran banker Tim Schneider, the former CEO and co-founder of Investors Community Bank.

The report, which examined trends between 2010 and 2021, found that the country's biggest banks only opened 638 branches in low-to-moderate-income communities made up primarily of people of color. That accounts for just 15% of their total branch openings.

The partners aim to lend $150 million in the next three years to sellers from "socially and economically distressed communities."

Royal Bank of Canada's investment banking arm held a round of layoffs in the U.S., according to people with knowledge of the matter.

The Biden administration was accused in a lawsuit by six Republican-led states of overstepping its authority with a plan to forgive federal student loans.

U.S. banks closed almost 3,000 more branches than they opened last year, but credit unions' branch count crept up in the second quarter despite consumers' heavier reliance on digital channels for account management.

Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce set a goal of reducing the carbon-emissions intensity of its lending to power generators, adding to targets it has already placed on the oil and gas industry.

Nearly nine out of 10 bankers surveyed by the Conference of State Bank Supervisors ranked the specter of rising deposit costs and narrowing margins as their top concern.

The claim that these arrangements are unregulated is inaccurate, and instead, more oversight would destroy the benefits of banks working with fintechs on consumer products.

The Alabama bank must pay $191 million in connection with charges it levied on customers whose account balances went negative before a transaction was posted. Seven years ago, the CFPB imposed a $7.5 million overdraft-related fine on Regions.

In a policy proposal published Tuesday, Fed staffers called for supervisory changes to accommodate banks with commercial real estate loans still reeling from COVID.

Mike Swalley, the longtime president and CEO of the North Chesterfield, Virginia, credit union, will retire next year. An internal search committee has partnered with D. Hilton Associates to find a successor.