Commercial lending

Green Bancorp's aggressive plan to attack its credit quality troubles and do what few Texas banks once would have dreamed of – quit energy lending – make it a subject of debate and a community bank to watch closely in 2017.

Chemical CEO David Ramaker has a wide range of options — diversify business lines, expand organically in several Midwestern states, pursue M&A or all of the above — following his recent acquisition of Talmer. But new challenges accompany Chemical's higher profile, too.

Congress wants to put federal flood program on sounder financial footing, encourage the development of private flood insurance market and stop the insanity of rebuilding properties subject to repetitive flooding.

Stephen Gordon has long been known as an entrepreneurial banker, which helped him expand his California bank aggressively over a five-year period. A spike in chargeoffs that led to a third-quarter loss spurred Gordon to beef up credit oversight. The question is whether that effort will stymie loan growth.

From the election's policy implications for banking to deep analysis of the Wells Fargo scandal, here are some of our favorite stories of the year. Stay tuned for Part II.

Lenders should be braced for some potential headaches as oil-related bankruptcies are expected to continue at a steady clip in 2017 and various market and political forces could influence oil supplies and prices.

Now that the OCC has proposed a limited-purpose bank charter for fintech companies, a host of innovative new banks will soon flood the market — or maybe not.

The National Credit Union Administration acted appropriately, within its legal authority, when issuing its member business lending rule.

The Federal Reserve Board has banned two former Regions Financial executives from the banking industry following their indictment on charges of defrauding the Birmingham, Ala., company.

Scandal, business models gone awry, missing money and executive shake-ups — 2016 had it all. Here are the financial services executives or groups of them who took the heat and will be looking for better times in 2017.