Sunwest Bank in Irvine, Calif., has been sending employees to Africa and South America since 2011 to do philanthropic work. While such projects could help recruit Millennials, industry experts also see challenges selling foreign missions to employees and customers.

Sheila Bair, the former chairman of the FDIC, has the answer for significantly reducing the regulatory burden on small banks: give regulators the power to exempt institutions with less than $10 billion of assets from any new or existing regulation.

There's nothing wrong with big banks gaining market share because they offer the products and services that customers want. But there's a problem when big banks can beat off their smaller rivals with a club fashioned by legislators and regulators.

One way to help the global economy prosper is to think of the poor and the middle class as untapped assets for entrepreneurship and job creation. That was the premise underlying a panel discussion at a recent conference on financial inclusion.The panel included, from left, Clare Woodcraft-Scott, the chief executive of the Emirates Foundation; Monica Mehta, managing principal of Seventh Capital in Houston, a family office that invests in lower-market consumer businesses, and author of "The Entrepreneurial Instinct: How Everyone Has the Innate Ability to Start a Successful Small Business," and Aja Brown, the mayor of Compton, Calif. Their discussion took place in Atlanta at the 2015 Hope Global Forum, presented by Operation Hope.

Aja Brown, the mayor of Compton, Calif., says introducing young people to what's possible, so that they don't feel limited by their current circumstances, is a way of continuing the mission that Martin Luther King Jr. started. Brown was a featured speaker at the recent Hope Global Forum, which focused on the theme of financial inclusion. She was there to discuss several initiatives underway in Compton, including one with the University of Southern California to offer industry-specific employment training.

Banks need outside help to deliver credit to the underserved, says Tim Wennes, the West Coast president of MUFG Union Bank, who shares advice on what kind of partners to seek and how to vet them.

Rallying bank employees to participate in outreach projects takes hard work in the beginning, but their involvement is essential to building a rapport with the community, OneWest Bank CEO Joseph Otting says.

There are some fairly basic, decisive steps banks could take to educate people outside the financial mainstream, and it would make banking more profitable, says John Bryant, the chairman and CEO of the nonprofit Operation Hope.

Pinnacle Financial recently bought a 30% stake in a firm that originates most of its loans to doctors online and then auctions them to community banks. The move promises higher fee income, but could also put Pinnacle at the forefront of banking's hottest trend.

WASHINGTON — Federal regulators on Friday announced the second stage of a mandated review of banking rules meant to identify opportunities for relief.

The Subsidy Reserve Act of 2015 could solve "too big to fail" and level the playing field for smaller banks by requiring the largest financial institutions to accumulate capital equal to the amount of the market subsidy they receive.

CoBiz Financial in Denver plans to shutter its investment banking unit by the end of March.

If you thought American Express' loss Thursday of a big antitrust case would help its rivals, think again. Visa, MasterCard, and even card-issuing banks could be hurt by the race to lower merchant fees that the ruling will set off.

The chief financial officer of WSFS Financial in Wilmington, Del., is leaving the bank holding company for Seacoast Banking in Stuart, Fla.

RIVERSIDE, Calif. — The two largest credit unions in Riverside County, Calif., on Thursday announced their intention to merge to create a $1.1 billion institution serving 118,000 members in the "Inland Empire" region of Southern California.

Talmer Bancorp in Troy, Mich., has paid billionaire backer Wilbur Ross $20 million to redeem warrants he has held in the company for several years.

CFPB officials are keeping a close watch on the Qualified Mortgage and ability-to-repay rules to gauge whether further changes should be made. But mortgage numbers don't give a clear picture on what kind of impact they've had.

Greenfield Cooperative Bank in Greenfield, Mass., and Northampton Cooperative Bank in Northampton, Mass., have received regulatory approval to merge.

Bank of Edwardsville in Illinois is set to have a new leader.

Online banking, ATMs and other advances have curtailed face-to-face transactions, but new Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. research says the brick-and-mortar office isn't going anywhere just yet.