Economy

Berkshire Hills Bancorp is buying a bank with a national mortgage platform. The company hopes the business will provide a much-needed lift in fee income.

U.S banks have come a long way from the early days of the stress tests, when it was unclear if any would pass. The majority of banks easily cleared the 5% minimum level for capital under the severely adverse scenario as well as the vaguer qualitative test the Federal Reserve Board imposes, suggesting institutions have finally gotten a handle on the process. Still, it's useful to see which banks improved from last year, as well as the few which fell toward the back of the back.

The bitcoin blockchain poses a negligible competitive threat to legacy institutions, but the technology could open up new markets for financial services, says a new report by Citigroup equities analysts.

NPL investors will have to consider principal reductions and offer more sustainable loan modifications.

The business case for real-time payments is not the opportunity to charge high fees. Rather, the payoff – which will take time – will come in retaining customers, lowering operational costs, and delivering timely financial insights to smartphone-toting customers.

Attendees at the recent White House fintech summit shined a spotlight on shared innovation challenges. To overcome them and help the U.S. make progress in financial services, we need to embrace these three regulatory reforms.

The vast majority of big banks seem to be getting a handle on the costly, labor-intensive and time-consuming stress-testing process. But for a pair of large banking companies, Santander Holdings USA and Deutsche Bank Trust Corp., the stress tests have so far proven to be an unconquerable challenge.

Although intended to protect investors from market volatility, a decision by Betterment to temporarily suspend trading the morning after the British referendum has the wealth management industry wondering aloud if the robo-adviser harmed its reputation instead.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency is soliciting industry input on how to improve Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac's credit risk transfer transactions, for the first time saying it is considering front-end transactions rather than back-end deals.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency wants mortgage servicers reaching out to delinquent borrowers to be exempt from tough restrictions on robo-calling. But the idea is being panned by consumer groups, who say it would give a free pass to mortgage servicers that have a record of consumer-protection violations.