Bankers defended force-placed insurance practices and dodged questions about alleged industry kickbacks and price gouging at a private but well-attended meeting hosted by the Federal Housing Finance Agency.

The nation's highest court is expected to announce Monday whether it will hear arguments in a case with the potential to dramatically lower banks' exposure to allegations of lending discrimination.

The $625 million-asset BNCF Financial will pay about $5 million in cash for the $75 million-asset Wilton. BNC Financial said it expects no tangible book value dilution after the deal is completed.

The public's confidence in U.S. banks is up five percentage points from a year earlier, to 26%, according to a poll released Friday by Gallup.

F.N.B. Corp. in Hermitage, Pa., has agreed to buy BCSB Bancorp in Baltimore in a stock transaction valued at $79 million, or $23.77 a share. The acquisition is the company's third in less than eight months.

Debt buyer Encore Capital Group Inc. on Thursday closed its $200 million acquisition of Asset Acceptance Capital Corp. All subsidiaries of Asset Acceptance are part of Encore Capital and Asset Acceptance’s stock, NASDAQ ticker symbol AACC, has been delisted.

Federal regulators must not rely on standard measures of differences between outcome rates without considering the way those measures change simply because the frequency of an outcome changes.

Washington Trust Bancorp in Westerly, R.I., has tapped one of its executives to become head of wealth management at its bank.

Prudential Bancorp in Philadelphia is planning a second-step conversion.

Visa sued Wal-Mart in a bid to stop the world's largest retailer from filing a lawsuit to press price-fixing claims over merchant swipe fees.

The Atlanta mortgage servicer said Thursday it would buy $78 billion in unpaid principal balances of mortgage servicing rights using a combination of cash and available credit.

NewBridge Bancorp (NBBC) in Greensboro, N.C., is acquiring a cash-strapped mutual at the behest of state regulators.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren voiced concerns Thursday about the regulatory burden facing community banks, asking whether the industry needs a two-tiered system of rules to keep the smallest institutions from being wiped out.

The $1.2 billion-asset company paid $540,000 to repurchase the warrant it issued the Treasury Department in December 2008, Hawthorn said Thursday.

Urban Partnership Bank's plans to open a branch inside a Walmart store in a revitalizing Chicago neighborhood show how two very different institutions decided they would be a good fit after listening to their customers.

Bankers and regulators may need to study the barriers of entry into banking just as seriously as the NFL and Major League Baseball consider new franchises for football and baseball.

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency has lifted a regulatory order that had been imposed on a unit of MetroCorp Bancshares in Houston.

JPMorgan Chase Chief Risk Officer John Hogan is returning to the bank in a new role after taking almost five months off and may decide to leave the firm altogether later this year or next, Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon told employees in a memo Thursday.

Associated Bank plans to use analytics so it can make more appropriate sales pitches and help business clients better manage their affairs.

The video produced by the influential nonprofit is meant to educate consumers – and keep the pressure on policymakers.