Banking

Ally Financial and Truist Financial took different approaches to achieve the same aim: giving digital investing clients the option of speaking with an advisor.

Six years after buying a bank, the New York company plans to sell its banking unit to a group of investors. The decision to refocus on its core businesses comes 18 months after Thasunda Brown Duckett took the reins as CEO.

Some 16 million applications for student debt relief will be approved by this week, provided the White House plan survives court challenges, President Biden said Thursday. 

Polyanna Unruh embraced her employer's tuition-assistance benefit to go from high-school graduate to MBA.

Ant Group's Singapore digital wholesale bank will start offering loans to small and medium-sized businesses, as the Chinese fintech giant extends its reach in the city-state.

The Minneapolis bank disclosed the investigation four months after the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau reached a settlement with Bank of America over the distribution of unemployment insurance benefits on prepaid debit cards.

Following the verdict, the student-loan servicer could potentially owe Louis Beryl more than $4.4 million in severance money. Navient fired Beryl less than three months after acquiring Earnest, the student loan refinancing company that he co-founded.

Wings Financial Credit Union in Apple Valley, Minnesota, has agreed to buy Settlers Bank in DeForest, Wisconsin. It's the third bank acquisition deal Wings has announced, one of which fell through.

The online consumer lender has told about 140 employees who process loan applications that it is eliminating their positions. The job cuts come as Upstart struggles to get banks and other investors interested in buying enough of its loans.

Just as automakers start making headway sorting out the parts shortages that have constrained production and left dealers with a scarce supply of vehicles to sell, the Federal Reserve is putting up a new obstacle: much costlier car loans.

FDIC data shows an uptick in the number of Americans with access to basic banking services. That momentum has to continue.

The shift in refi behavior — in the wake of multiple Federal Reserve interest rate hikes — helped fuel a loan growth trend that's expected to continue through year-end.

The global climate coalition said in a new report that its members maintain "independent investment decision-making" authority after some U.S. banks grew concerned about legal exposure to rules requiring the phaseout of fossil-fuel investments.

Rising interest rates are forcing credit unions to pay more for deposits while they are sitting on low-yielding loans, according to the National Credit Union Administration's eastern regional director, John Kutchey.

The agreement, which still needs court approval, should help what remains of the online small-business lender as it moves through bankruptcy proceedings. After Kabbage emerged as a major Paycheck Protection Program lender, some of its key assets were sold to American Express.

In this month's roundup of American Banker's favorite stories: JPMorgan Chase moves third parties away from screen scraping, Wells Fargo launches its new virtual assistant, bank CEOs predict a return to office within the next three years and more.

Affinity Federal Credit Union in Basking Ridge said Kevin Brauer will succeed John Fenton as president and chief executive on Jan. 1.

The proliferation of mobile banking and online payment services like PayPal is one of several reasons more consumers have joined the financial mainstream, according to the FDIC's latest report on Americans' access to banking services.