Credit

First Personal Bank in Illinois tried — and failed — to sell itself three times. The bank finally found an eager buyer after tackling several lingering problems.

The Los Angeles bank also benefited from a reduced reliance on costlier certificates of deposit.

A $135 million increase in litigation expenses related to its 2011 acquisition of Wilmington Trust overshadowed a wider net interest margin and improved credit quality for the Buffalo, N.Y., company in the first quarter.

Bank’s earnings report notes possible $1 billion in fines; loan-loss accounting rule will be rolled out over three years.

The bank revealed Friday that it is facing hefty regulatory penalties and will likely have to restate first-quarter earnings. Declines in loan balances and fee income and questions about upcoming stress tests are only adding to investors' worries.

Investors are growing worried about lackluster loan growth this year at community banks.

Readers react to Mick Mulvaney’s proposal to restructure the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, opine on Community Reinvestment Act reform ideas, weigh in on emojis in digital banking and more.

Some speculate that the banks who do business with credit reporting agencies may be looking for alternatives after mounting concerns about their ability to keep information private. But breaking up is hard to do.

A broad network of financial data, such as utility payments and direct deposits, could help those without established credit histories better obtain loans. It might also help lenders make more accurate underwriting predictions.

Some fear that the removal of such data from individual credit reports could lead lenders to believe a consumer is a better bet than they really are.

The annual progress report on the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac conservatorships reiterated that a new credit score model will likely not be operational until after the implementation of a new Single Security Initiative.

Renasant is requiring Brand Group to sell $55 million in classified loans before closing the deal, while attaching an incentive for the seller to get as much as possible for those sales.

Some investors fear BBVA is taking a big risk by getting into unsecured personal lending long after online lenders have established themselves, but bank officials argue the bank’s cost of funds and in-depth knowledge of its customers will help it to outdo the competition.

The hiring of Mark Begor comes as the credit bureau has been shuffling its top managers since disclosing last year that hackers were able to access the personal data of 145.5 million U.S. consumers.

The team that founded marketplace lender Avant Inc. raised about $15 million to start a firm that will use blockchain technology and digital tokens to motivate companies to share data about customer identities and credit worthiness.

Bank of America is offloading some margin loans after losing $292 million on soured credit to the former chairman of Steinhoff International Holdings, according to people with knowledge of the matter.

Use of alternative data in traditional credit scoring would help consumers access the banking system and lower their cost of credit.

A former senior executive at Equifax Inc. was criminally charged for allegedly selling almost $1 million worth of shares before the company’s announcement last year that it had suffered a massive data breach.

A late addition to regulatory relief legislation would direct the Federal Housing Finance Agency to review credit-scoring alternatives, but some say the provision is redundant.

TransUnion’s analysis of credit card applications and transactions finds fraudsters continue to steal more, but the rate of increase is slowing.