Commercial lending

With consumers generally averse to risk, financial institutions have an opportunity to rethink what it means to make bets in line with their customers' well-being.

CIT's bread-and-butter business — commercial banking — weakened as it embarks on a broader turnaround plan. Soft demand from midsize companies plagued it and other lenders last quarter. Will that problem continue the rest of the year?

The Palo Alto, Calif.-based startup said Wednesday it plans to use the investment to help grow its cloud-based factoring platform for small businesses and expand into new market segments.

With the purchase of Sweep, Max Levchin's firm is betting that daily engagement with consumers will pay long-term dividends.

How two midsize banks and a marketplace lender are relying on chief culture officers to maintain a lively work environment and preserve their values amid M&A and organic growth.

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.

LendingClub Corp., a pioneer of online marketplace lending, said it raised rates for borrowers again to reflect a gloomier economic outlook and worse-than-expected performance for some of its riskiest loans.

Higher compensation and credit costs drove down quarterly profits at Fifth Third Bancorp in Cincinnati, offsetting revenue gains.

Citizens Financial Group in Providence, R.I., said Thursday that its first-quarter earnings increased 7% from the same period last year, to $223 million, as strong commercial loan growth offset a dip in fee income. Earnings per share increased 8%, to 41 cents.

For years, banks in the Midwest looked beyond the region to increase revenue and profit. Today, the area is starting to bounce back, allowing many of those banks to thrive by focusing on their core markets.

An online student loan refinancing business that was recently spun off from a Virginia bank has been rebranded as Purefy Inc.