Commercial lending

CommonBond, an online lender that specializes in student loan refinancing, announced Monday that it has sold $150 million of bundled loans to investors.

Lance Osborne is vying for two board seats at First Niles Financial in Ohio, but he isn’t pushing the thrift to sell itself. Rather, he wants management to pull money out of securities to make more loans.

Recent prosecutions against lenders accused of usury violations will test the government's use of a law more commonly known in organized crime cases.

Bankers blamed regulators' new methodologies for rating certain energy loans – and a new two-stage shared national credit review process – for an increase in downgrades and loan-loss provisions. Regulators reportedly are reacting to an increase in second liens tied to exploration and production companies.

Illinois, California and New York are all taking initial steps to try to crack down on borrower abuses in the fast-growing digital lending marketplace. The states are facing pressure to intervene because federal agencies have yet to take decisive action.

F.N.B.'s acquisition of Metro Bancorp bulked up the Pittsburgh company's loan book, but M&A costs ate into its first-quarter profit.

SunTrust Banks in Atlanta increased reserves for downgraded energy loans in the first quarter, but it was still able to produce solid revenue and earnings growth.

Capital continues to flow freely into financial technology ventures, many of which are repositioning themselves as aspiring partners for banks rather than would-be disruptors.

The Paris Agreement on limiting the rise in global temperatures opens up new lending opportunities related to low-carbon projects while highlighting an array of new risks for financial institutions.

Lending Club said Thursday that it has hired Sameer Gulati, formerly of McKinsey & Co., to be its chief operations officer and promoted another executive, Scott Sanborn, to president. Both are newly created positions at the nonbank lender.