Consumer lending

The personal lending boom continues: HSBC's U.S. arm is teaming up with Avant, a closely held online lender, to offer unsecured loans to new and existing customers.

Consumer finance portal will be able to tell customers which loans they’ll qualify for; Marcus unit will soon offer investment services.

The Salt Lake City bank said consumer loans rose 7% from a year earlier. That was one of its several quarterly highlights.

The firm is disbanding its consumer and commercial banking division and will make the Marcus brand one of the new business offerings that can be sold to its wealth management unit’s expanding roster of clients.

In a move designed to improve access to financial products for consumers with low credit scores and short credit histories, Experian, FICO and Finicity are developing an "UltraFICO" score that lets individuals share checking and savings account data and help lenders better assess risk.

The $22.9 billion-asset TCF also highlighted improvements in credit quality in the third quarter as it continued to exit the auto finance business.

The Stamford, Conn.-based company reported 9% growth in net interest income and 14% growth in loan receivables during the third quarter, attributing the improvements to addition of the PayPal Credit portfolio in early July.

Strong net interest income and other factors made up for a drop in investment banking and other noninterest income at the Atlanta bank, which reported double-digit earnings growth.

The senator wants the Fed to retain its asset cap on Wells Fargo until the CEO is fired; industry groups call on regulators to reconsider or scrap plans to modify Volcker Rule.

A shifting C&I landscape, heated competition for deposits and red flags in consumer lending also took center stage in often testy exchanges between bankers and analysts on quarterly earnings calls.

The firms' profit reports this week showed they're increasingly rushing into the booming market for lending to high-net-worth individuals. So far, it's paying off: Morgan Stanley has tripled those loans in the past five years, while Goldman Sachs is expanding overseas.

Bigger banks appear to be losing C&I share to small and midsize lenders. That's raising questions about whether community banks — known more for commercial real estate lending — have enough expertise to underwrite deals that larger banks avoid.

As financial institutions struggle to regain public trust, they need to find more systematic ways to gauge how their work impacts consumers and communities.

On Jun. 30, 2018. Dollars in thousands.

On Jun. 30, 2018. Dollars in thousands.

Net income soared 32% thanks to higher interest rates that contributed to a wider net interest margin and its most interest income in a quarter in years.

Citigroup spent years reeling in customers with promotional rates, many of which have expired or soon will. The bank thinks it can keep a large number of those customers and make more money off of them.

Wells Fargo & Co. hasn’t yet fixed all of its problems, but at least it stopped its revenue slump.

The bureau says it lacks explicit authority to conduct routine supervision of lenders’ compliance with service member protections, but the decision has sparked pushback from the Defense Department and groups representing military personnel.

The regulator's latest Quarterly Map Review shows credit unions' good run continuing, but some states remain stuck in a rut.