Capital markets

Wells Fargo, which is expanding its investment banking unit, has hired Mike Mayo to oversee U.S. large-cap bank research.

As long as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac exist, they must have adequate capital so taxpayers will never again be compelled to help them meet their financial obligations.

Many companies in the payments industry see B-to-B transactions as ripe for modernization, and Mastercard is no exception. Its recent participation in a $300 million funding round in AvidXchange enables a new approach to this market.

Citizens Financial is going out of market to find midsize businesses in need of credit or advisory services in uncertain times. It is a good example of the resiliency that regional banks are showing amid softer loan demand, Washington gridlock and still-low interest rates.

Dan Morehead’s Pantera Capital Management, which calls itself the first U.S. bitcoin investment firm, is buying other digital coins.

Merchant acquirers are racing to sell "integrated payments," or a one-stop shop for transaction processing and myriad other services that stores can tie to the point of sale. But small to medium sized businesses are not often the targets for these efforts.

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio and Comptroller Scott Stringer are pushing to prevent the city from hiring Wells Fargo to lead bond sales or handle other banking business until it improves its track record of lending in poor communities.

Canada's big banks are pursuing wholesale banking, capital markets and select M&A opportunities across the border to hedge against a slowing mortgage market and other economic concerns on the home front.

Murphy Capital Management in Gladstone, N.J., focuses on high-net-worth individuals, businesses and nonprofits.

Royal Bank of Canada got an earnings boost from its U.S. capital markets business and its ownership of City National Bank in Los Angeles, helping to offset softer growth at home.

Long Game uses behavioral economics and the mass popularity of lottery games to redirect lottery spending toward savings.

Diebold Nixdorf, on a mission to expand its omnichannel banking and retail offerings, has formed a strategic partnership with Kony Inc., a maker of white-label mobile applications.

The trend of putting ever-smaller pieces of the same commercial mortgages into multiple securitizations requires investors to be extra careful, and will inevitably make workouts of bad loans more complicated.

Suni Harford is off to UBS, and Shaza Andersen is selling the bank she founded. Also, you should hear how venture capitalists talk about female entrepreneurs.

Paytm, India’s largest digital payments startup, raised $1.4 billion from SoftBank Group Corp. in the largest funding round from a single investor for the country’s technology sector.

Investors have poured $15 million into Nymi to help the Toronto startup commercialize its wearable authentication technology.

JPMorgan Chase, which already made a $10 million investment in mobile payments and loyalty provider LevelUp, renewed its interest in a just-completed $50 million round of funding.

Brendan Dickinson of Canaan Partners says PFM startups have deep relationships with customers, unlike online lenders, but the revenue model isn't as strong.

The roughly $2 million investment comes as banks keep joining (and in some cases, leaving) various distributed ledger projects as they try to pick the winners in a young field.

Fifth Third, Huntington Bancshares and KeyCorp are among the companies backing an effort to bring startups to the Buckeye State.