Consumer lending

Eighteen marketers that allegedly cheated U.S. and Canadian consumers out of more than $7 million are banned from selling business or work-at-home opportunities under court orders obtained by the Federal Trade Commission.

Bank repossessions of distressed homes hit a 30-month high in July, as financial institutions continue to work through the backlog of bubble-era loans.

Illinois has amended provisions of the Illinois Collection Agency Act, including removing language about debt collectors and raising the maximum civil penalty for unlicensed practices.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has ordered Springstone Financial LLC to provide $700,000 in relief to victims of allegedly deceptive credit enrollment tactics.

The U.S. trustee who oversees the bankruptcy case filed by Hutcheson Medical Center in Fort Oglethorpe, Ga. said the case should be dismissed because the financial condition of the hospital is too far gone.

There's good reason to be wary of government data collection. But not all government data collection is problematic. The facts about particular government data collection programs matter.

An auto loan company that allegedly offered illegal loans to Oregon residents is being sued by the state's attorney general.

The mortgage delinquency rate - the rate of borrowers 60 days or more delinquent on their mortgages - continued its fast decline, falling to 2.72% in the second quarter ended June 30, according to TransUnion.

Once again the markets have fallen in love with a group of young, aggressive and not very regulated lenders.

City officials in Trenton, N.J. have hired a collection agency to pursue more than $2.9 million in outstanding municipal court fines.

Two research associations have filed a joint motion to intervene in a court case against new telephone rules issued by the Federal Communications Commission.

The FTC announced that judges for its Robocalls: Humanity Strikes Back contest selected a first place winner for the $25,000 cash prize for building a mobile app that blocks and forwards robocalls to a crowd-sourced honeypot.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have a regulatory mandate to shrink. But that's easier said than done, given the government-sponsored enterprises' outsized presence in the mortgage industry, as their latest quarterly results show.

Officials in Mahanoy City, Pa. will direct delinquent garbage accounts to a new collection agency that will charge people an added 25% late fee on all overdue accounts but will collect no additional fees from the city.

Minnesota lawmakers plan to introduce legislation next year to curb payday lending after a previous proposal failed that would have limited the number of loans consumers can take out to four.

DBA International, an association representing debt buyers, hosted its 2015 Executive Summit this week in Park City, Utah.

Increases in credit card and auto loan balances were not enough to keep overall household debt balances from remaining flat since the first quarter, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s Household Debt and Credit Report.

The foreclosure crisis is receding, but it has having an enduring impact on lenders' risk appetites.

The New Jersey Senate passed a bill Thursday that would require collection agencies to stop pursuing identity theft victims until the debt is sorted out.

FNBH Bancorp in Michigan has been unable to make an important move without its primary regulator's OK in the six years since its nonperforming assets hit double digits. It's an extreme example of the tension between past problems and future visions that freezes many banks.