Commercial lending

Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer is calling on bank regulators to draw up a list of guidance going back 20 years to determine whether it should be submitted under the Congressional Review Act.

Rather than pull up stakes and leave two low-income Mississippi towns at the mercy of payday lenders, Regions Bank donated the branches to a local credit union and kicked in another $500,000 for operating costs.

Amid the rise of online lending earlier this decade, banks were derided as being too slow to adapt. But over time it's become clear that banks hold key advantages over lending startups.

Capital Corps, led by Steven Sugarman, aims to provide financing to homeowners and small businesses that it believes are overlooked by banks. The firm features several former Banc of California executives.

The online small-business lender, which has been cutting expenses, said it is on track to achieve profitability in the fourth quarter.

Community banks are spending on technology to expand without having to build new branches.

The customer interface is just the tip of the iceberg in fintech, says Wells Fargo's Secil Watson. Plus, the tech trends in business banking, a power shift on sexual harassment as women support each other, and Michelle Obama's advice on raising boys.

Fifth Third, U.S. Bancorp and others aim to design a short-term credit product that would satisfy their various regulators, but exactly how and how quickly they should go about it is murky at this point.

Evans Bancorp in New York believes the business is ill-suited for community banks and that it can draw unwanted attention from regulators.

Call-report data on commercial and industrial loans does not fully capture small-business lending by smaller institutions, a recent FDIC survey suggests.