Economy

Since John Stumpf's appearance before the Senate Banking Committee last week, the situation has become even worse for the Wells Fargo CEO, with new lawsuits filed, the Labor Department opening an investigation and the CFTC fining it for an unrelated action. Here's what to expect when Stumpf appears in the House on Thursday.

The bad-news stories about the largest institutions are worrisome in light of housing finance proposals that could benefit the big banks even more.

Federal Reserve Gov. Daniel Tarullo laid out a sweeping vision of the future of the central bank's hallmark supervisory stress testing program — a vision that involves major concessions to midsize regionals and puts added pressure of the largest and most systemically risky banks.

The $2.2 billion-asset company disclosed in a regulatory filing that it redeemed $12.2 million, the remaining half of its SBLF shares, on Sept. 22 at a liquidation value of $1,000 each for $12.4 million.

In a speech Monday, Federal Reserve Gov. Daniel Tarullo outlined sweeping changes to the Fed's hallmark supervisory program, including bank-specific — but substantially higher — capital minimums and dropping a qualitative grade for all but the largest and most complex banks.

Randolph Bancorp raised $57 million in a mutual-to-stock conversion and is using the proceeds to fund acquisitions — it closed its first-ever deal in July — and dramatically improve its digital capabilities.

Financial institutions must act on the "urgent and fundamental" need to transform the correspondent banking system, the consulting firm said in an annual report on global payments.

Both government-sponsored enterprises discount the rates on loans for buildings with "green" certifications; they also underwrite some of the projected savings from upgrades on buildings of a certain age, allowing owners to take out bigger loans.

In an announcement Friday afternoon, Philadelphia Federal Reserve Bank President Patrick Harker said his regional bank is launching an "Agenda on Poverty and Prosperity" to provide research and recommendations to Fed leaders on the interaction between poverty and economic growth.

Fannie Mae employees will be working this weekend to update the agency's automated underwriting machine to process trended data for the first time.

Independent sales organizations and independent software vendors are equally threatened by disruption, making an alliance a logical — if uneasy — step for both groups.

WASHINGTON — Democratic Senators sent a letter Thursday to the Department of Labor requesting an investigation into possible labor violations at Wells Fargo related to unpaid overtime and other abuses that came to light after articles by the Los Angeles Times and a regulatory settlement announced two weeks ago.

The high volume of commercial mortgages maturing this year has left some property owners scrambling for funds to refinance. Not so for these eight landlords, who took advantage of the strong price appreciation of their iconic office buildings, luxury hotels, super regional shopping malls, and a portfolio of rental homes, to cash out — in some cases, to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars of equity. Bank commercial real estate lenders, who know all too well the cyclical nature of this sector, will want to take a close look at these transactions, details courtesy of our colleagues at Asset Securitization Report.

Other investigations related to Wells Fargo may prevent the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau from sharing confidential information with House investigators, Director Richard Cordray said Thursday.

Republican lawmakers are pushing back against claims by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's allies that it rooted out fraud at Wells Fargo, arguing the L.A. City Attorney and the Los Angeles Times brought the situation to light.

Bankers generally expect loan demand to increase over the next year, but global shocks, domestic politics and regional economic variations may be prompting them to prepare for slightly slower growth than before.

Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen today pushed back against the notion that banks might be "too big to manage", saying that despite concerns raised by the recent scandal at Wells Fargo, there is no inherent reason why large banks cannot meet existing standards of conduct.

John Stumpf may have hoped that Tuesday's hearing on Capitol Hill would mark a key turning point in Wells Fargo's blossoming scandal, but his harsh questioning by lawmakers — and his struggle to answer many of their questions — suggests that the embattled megabank's problems are just beginning.

Policymakers repeatedly said during a Senate Banking hearing Tuesday that Wells' mistakes couldn't be blamed — as the company maintains — just on rogue employees. Instead, they see a cultural problem at the San Francisco bank and wonder whether it extends beyond Wells Fargo.

Ten institutions are rising above national grievances to help startups – many minority owned – get up and running in a struggling mill town.