Banking

Wall Street gets an automated nonfungible tokens machine, credit union arrivals and departures, and more in banking news this week.

Following the departure of longtime chairman and CEO Dan Sheehan, the company has chosen Abel Iglesias, president of Professional’s bank subsidiary, as the new CEO. Meanwhile, director Herbert Martens has become nonexecutive chairman.

The $1.6 billion-asset institution says it has simply outgrown its old moniker.

Brad Bolton, incoming chairman of the Independent Community Bankers of America, wants the advocacy group to push back against overly broad policymaking and credit unions' tax status, while opening the door to cannabis banking.

The Federal Reserve and the FDIC are weighing changes to their policies for reviewing mergers and acquisitions, and that’s creating a sense of urgency among bankers to cinch deals now.

Buying BT Holdings in Texas will take the Louisiana bank close to the size where it would face increased regulatory scrutiny and a reduction in interchange revenue.

Cheryl DeBoer will step down in early 2023 as president and CEO of the $2.7 billion-asset credit union, which has not yet named a successor.

The $2.3 trillion-asset company plans to scrap the charges by this summer. It joins Capital One and Ally in doing away with the fees, which face pressure from Biden-era regulators.

The Houston bank negotiated the agreement with the National Community Reinvestment Coalition after closing its merger with BancorpSouth. That deal created a lender with $50 billion of assets and operations in nine states.

Royal Bank of Canada is still benefiting from the pandemic-era boom in capital markets.

Municipal Credit Union was first placed into the custody of the National Credit Union Administration in 2019, after its former chief executive was charged with fraud and embezzlement.

New England Federal Credit Union, the largest financial institution headquartered in the Green Mountain State, is combining with Vermont State Employees Credit Union to create an organization with $3 billion of assets.

Community lenders may choose to stop serving small businesses rather than absorb the expense of collecting information on race and ethnicity under a proposal by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Banks flush with liquidity are likely to keep deposit yields low even as the rates they earn on loans widen, which should result in higher net interest income. One industry analyst predicts “NII to the sky.”

A busy end to the year for Barclays’ dealmakers helped offset a slump in trading activity and lift the British bank to its highest annual profit on record.

Roughly two dozen countries have issued central bank digital currencies or have pilots underway. But until financial services firms strengthen the security of their mobile apps, these payment tools are unlikely to gain widespread acceptance.

Canadian banks have frozen just over 200 accounts under emergency powers invoked by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau that are meant to end protests in Ottawa and at key border crossings, a government official said this week.

Paywallet CEO DK Sharma has raised about $14 million for a system that facilitates loans of up to $10,000, with installments coming out of borrowers' pay. It's meant to be an alternative to payday lenders.

After Russian President Vladimir Putin recognized two self-proclaimed separatist republics in eastern Ukraine, lenders such as SocGen, UniCredit and Raiffeisen look increasingly exposed to the knock-on effects of financial sanctions by Western governments.

With its $1.1 billion deal for Technisys, the onetime student-loan refinancer adds a banking-core software arm as it pushes beyond deposits and lending.