Consumer lending

The once-worsening trend of consumers struggling to pay their credit card bills keeps stabilizing, new data from card issuers showed this week. The improved picture comes amid other signs that consumers aren't slowing their spending.

Acima offers lease-to-own plans on consumer items, but the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and New York officials are calling those plans credit. The battles, playing out in separate courts, could trigger more expansive protections for customers.

The consumer lender has signed a nonbinding letter of intent to sell its credit card portfolio, which will simplify its business to personal loans and automated savings.

Shawn Stone, the new CEO, has more than 25 years of experience in online loan origination, loan servicing operations, credit and capital markets.

The same creativity and flexibility that community development financial institutions bring to business lending ought to be applied to financing affordable housing.

The Bank of Japan's interest rate hike and plan for quantitative tightening have international markets scrambling to adjust to a new reality in which carry trade credit is tighter and a U.S. downturn is somewhat more likely.

The proposed settlement would resolve allegations that USAA violated laws protecting those in the military from excessive interest rates. The bank said it "strongly disagrees" with the allegations.

When the superregional bank sold its insurance business for $10.1 billion, it laid out three ways to use the proceeds: buybacks, a balance sheet repositioning and loan growth. The latter plan is so far proving to be elusive.

Bank OZK is the latest commercial real estate-heavy bank to announce plans to diversify its business. CEO George Gleason emphasized that he's confident in the bank's loan portfolio, but said he thinks misperceptions are dragging down the stock price.

Indirect auto loan originations at the Ohio-based bank rose by 31% from the first quarter. Huntington sees the business as an opportunity at a time when numerous other banks have been pulling back.