Banking

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency has raised “certain regulatory concerns” about Blue Ridge Bankshares, delaying its combination with FVCBankcorp well into next year.

Despite some bumps in the early days of the Paycheck Protection Program, small businesses report that they had positive experiences with lenders. Savvy banks are channeling the good vibes to generate more revenue from a sector that has sometimes been overlooked.

Hispanic adults are underbanked compared with their white counterparts, according to the Federal Reserve. Challenger banks such as Tend and Viva First are reaching out to this population with bilingual services and low-cost money transfers.

The Federal Reserve had made it easier for financial institutions facing COVID-19-related pressures to comply with the supplementary leverage ratio. The central bank ended that break last spring, but the industry says the market distortions that originally prompted Fed action persist.

Companies using only a person’s name and not other identifiers to screen job and tenant applications can produce inaccurate information, according to the bureau. The agency's advisory opinion said such practices violate the Fair Credit Reporting Act.

Under the country's buyout rules, Carlyle now has until Dec. 2 to announce whether or not it will make a firm offer for the company.

Financial institutions say it would require them to overhaul their payments technology, deprive them of revenue and force them to pass added costs on to merchants and consumers.

The $323 million acquisition would give the Indiana bank a presence in affluent Oakland County and in Ann Arbor and Grand Rapids.

OceanFirst Financial in New Jersey has agreed to pay $186 million to buy Partners Bancorp, which owns two banks that operate in the Washington suburbs and surrounding areas.

Digital upstarts like Square, Stripe and PayPal are invading community banks' turf by appealing to local merchants with a mix of electronic payments and lending. Small banks are fighting back by leaning into digital services while maintaining their personal touch.

Accrue Savings is introducing a savings account that is tied to specific retailers, allowing customers to gradually accumulate the amount they need to buy an item and earn cash rewards for making progress toward their goals.

The speed of money movement represents the future - success for those who deliver, challenges for those who don't

The small Pennsylvania regional signed up four cryptocurrency services companies as customers this week. CEO Sam Sidhu says the bank's new platform is helping it win business in this highly specialized market.

Hunt, who joined the CBA in 2009, has been a vocal critic of the federal student loan program and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s leadership structure. He plans to leave the trade group next summer.

The Burlington-based institution has extended its charter to provide services to all counties in Vermont.

Amid a spate of deals in 2021, community banks are actively recruiting from merging rivals that are focused on closing and integrating acquisitions.

The White House's latest budget proposal slashes funding for a program that would allow the Small Business Administration to make direct 7(a) loans. Lenders say the idea is still misguided.

A report by the agency found that consumers in majority Black neighborhoods were more than twice as likely as those in white neighborhoods to lodge complaints with the credit bureaus over information in their files. Meanwhile, disputes were less common among older borrowers.

A partisan split at a congressional hearing offered a preview of coming regulatory debates over the nascent sector. One key question is whether the consumer bureau will impose ability-to-repay requirements on installment lenders.

The $8.7 billion-asset credit union has cut its charge for overdrafts from $25 to $5, following similar reductions by other financial institutions.