Americans increased their borrowing in the final three months of 2014 and, in a troubling sign, are wrestling more with student and auto loans, according to a study released Tuesday by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

Biddeford Savings Bank and Mechanics Savings Bank will form a holding company to help each cut costs and make bigger loans. But the thrifts are hoping to keep their own charters, and independence, over the long term.

HSBC has spent billions of dollars in compliance and legal costs, but the damaging scandals keep coming. Renewed attention on the problems at its Swiss private bank could fuel the debate about whether banks this size are too big to manage.

Metro Bancorp, a company under fire from activist investors, has adopted a shareholder rights agreement that will provide common stock shareholders a dividend of one right per share.

ConServe, a Fairport, N.Y.-based accounts receivable management company, has promoted several employees to managerial positions and hired new personnel.

Consumer credit default data through January shows a slight upward move in default rates from lows experienced last year, according to Tuesday’s report by S&P Dow Jones Indices and Experian.

Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey has asked the Department of Education to forgive the school loans of hundreds of students from the state enrolled at Corinthian Colleges Inc., a for-profit company investigated by federal authorities for practices that left many students deeply in debt.

Union Bankshares in Richmond, Va., and Entegra Financial in Franklin, N.C., are rebranding their banks.

Social Finance, an alternative lender that has made its name in student loans, has branched out into unsecured personal loans.

WASHINGTON — Bankers, technology CEOs and President Obama are throwing everything they have at countering the threat of cyber attacks, but based on a White House summit Friday on the issue, it's far from clear that it will be enough.

Racial disparity in small-business loans remains glaring, despite some improvement. Lenders' unfamiliarity with African-American communities is part of the problem, but so is the need for financial education among prospective borrowers.

Loan demand, which bankers say remained weak well after the recession, is picking up, and the industry is adjusting business models to meet it. But banks may want to act fast.

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Georgia state regulators on Friday closed the $272 million-asset Capitol City Bank & Trust Co., in Atlanta, the third institution to fail this year.

Athens Federal Community Bank has applied for a national bank charter as it broadens its focus beyond residential mortgage lending.

New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman has introduced a bill that would impose new regulations on employers that pay workers through payroll cards.

Branch closings draw big headlines, but several large banks are entering new markets — or bulking up in underrepresented cities — by adding branches and hiring lenders. Bank of America, for instance, is planning a retail push in Denver and Minneapolis.

A recap of the informed opinions (and the discussions they generated) on BankThink this week.

Just three years ago, CEO David Nelms heralded the purchase of LendingTree Loans as a milestone in Discover's evolution from a strict credit-card company to a broad-based consumer lender. Now he is hinting that it might exit the mortgage business.

Lenders including Bank of America and Citigroup are accelerating their sales of soured U.S. mortgages as investment firms compete to buy the debt.