Credit

High interest rates and tough economic conditions played a role in the credit woes that overcame BayFirst Financial's small-dollar lending effort.

A FICO survey shows 33% think exaggerating income on credit applications is acceptable. Ironically, many also prioritize strong fraud prevention from banks.

Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Bill Pulte should direct the agency to examine credit scoring models based on cash flow as a complement to existing systems.

The Columbus, Ohio-based regional bank also benefited from strong performances by several legacy business lines, including auto, mortgages and SBA lending.

Private mortgage insurers must accept the FICO alternative as valid collateral before it can be widely adopted by the mortgage industry.

A federal judge in Texas dismissed the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's medical debt rule and prohibited states from passing their own laws prohibiting medical debt on credit reports.

The move their regulator Bill Pulte announced introduces competition for one metric but charges from three credit bureaus will remain in place.

An error in data submitted to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau about consumers with no credit record — known as "credit invisibles" — has skewed the agency's reports, showing that the number of Americans without credit histories is half what it was thought to be.

Many young people begin their journey into adulthood without a solid grounding in the basics of personal finance. Banks and other financial institutions are in a unique position to provide that knowledge.

Although credit bureaus have collected this data for three years, it's only now being factored into assessments of consumer creditworthiness.

The credit bureau is working with Plaid to provide lenders with current and predictive cash-flow data for consumers that don't have an extensive credit record.

The CEO of First Northwest Bancorp is promising to fight a lawsuit claiming the lender helped a client perpetrate a Ponzi scheme that bilked a hedge fund out of more than $100 million.

Banks can now make loans of less than $1,000 easily and profitably. Increasing their availability would benefit consumers, communities and, most of all, banks themselves.

Princeton Bancorp, which has $2.3 billion of assets, reported a sizable impairment charge tied to participation loans on a pair of office properties.

The card issuing fintech has worked for years to expand its business outside of Block. Mike Milotich, who in February became the third person to hold the fintech's top job in as many years, has been tasked to do just that.

Because of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's onerous regulation governing prepaid products, Americans who rely on them as their primary personal banking tool are being denied access to features available to users of similar products, such as checking accounts.

Investors seemed to agree with CEO Barry Sloane's argument that strong earnings will outweigh a jump in nonaccrual loans.

The bureau's Tuesday afternoon announcement follows an earlier statement that it would walk back a rule that places buy now/pay later loans under the Truth in Lending Act's Regulation Z, a move that will ease compliance for fintechs that offer installment loans.

Tokenization is a natural fit for the private credit market, and could help create new investment opportunities. But regulators must create clear rules of the road.