Consumer lending

Regional banks like BB&T, Huntington Bancshares and Citizens Financial are growing through acquisition and targeted business-line initiatives, but they are having to contain spending simultaneously.

Bankers are taking the unusual step of asking the government for additional regulations — ones that can be used to block the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau from seeking more data from financial institutions.

Profits rose at Citizens Financial in the second quarter thanks to higher-than-expected fee income and loan growth, including improvements in mortgages and auto finance as well as a continuing surge in student lending.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's fifth anniversary marks an important shift for the agency in which it pivots from rules required by the Dodd-Frank Act to pursuing other areas.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is expected to unveil a proposal on July 28 that would regulate debt collection practices.

WASHINGTON — Republican lawmakers put Department of Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julian Castro on the hot seat Wednesday, criticizing his decision to allow nonprofit community groups to bid on more nonperforming Federal Housing Administration loans.

Despite recent controversy over Tesla crashes, the march toward autonomous driving technology continues. And that means big changes for auto lenders.

Santander Consumer Holdings in Dallas on Tuesday appointed William Rainer chairman, and it announced that Blythe Masters has resigned to advise Banco Santander — its Spanish parent company — on the blockchain.

The sharp fall in gas prices early this year helped U.S. consumers to stay current on their credit obligations during the first quarter.

Reports from the big three credit bureaus do not include information about payday loans, but a CFPB proposal figures to shake up that arms-length relationship.

The number of customers who obtained 10 payday loans in 2015 outnumbered those who obtained just one, the California Department of Business Oversight said in a report Wednesday.

Installment lenders are concerned that efforts by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to curb the most abusive and predatory practices associated with payday loans will wreak havoc on their business.

Fannie and Freddie regulator's first report on NPL sales shows more borrowers avoid foreclosures when their loans are sold to investors.

Some critics of the bureau think there is a renewed chance to change the bureau's structure. They point to the presidential election and recent setbacks to CFPB Director Richard Cordray, including a watchdog's report on employee discrimination and a pending legal challenge to its constitutionality, as laying the groundwork for a change.

Banks, credit card companies and other financial firms are strategizing ways to stave off higher legal bills they expect from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s proposal to limit the use of arbitration clauses, which is likely to open the floodgates to class action lawsuits.

Debt collection complaints fell in May, and the average of complaints from March through May also dropped, according to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s latest monthly complaint report.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday allowed a class-action lawsuit against Encore Capital Group Inc. to proceed, declining to hear the debt-buying giant's claim that such companies should be protected from state laws barring money-lending at unreasonably high interest rates.

WASHINGTON — Community banks and credit unions would be forced to stop making short-term, small dollar loans if the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's payday lending proposal is adopted, two trade groups said Monday.

The court's decision to return Madden v. Midland Funding to a lower court leaves unresolved a number of important questions for marketplace lenders and other parts of the consumer-finance industry.

In a setback for the U.S. consumer finance industry, the Supreme Court said Monday that it will not review a lower court's decision that bolstered the ability of states to enforce bans on high-cost lending.