Economy

International events like the Davos economic forum should remind business leaders of the importance of being stewards and of having workforce diversity.

A number of community banks have gotten into government-backed small-business lending by buying firms or poaching talent. While the business seems lucrative now, there are concerns that too many banks may be jumping into the pool.

Banks operating on legacy systems created 30 to 40 years ago are becoming far more open to working with third-party innovators, which have no interest in the baggage that would accompany becoming a direct competitor to the banks themselves.

Executives of Wells Fargo, especially CEO John Stumpf, have repeatedly insisted that the economy (and their bank) will be fine despite the collapse in oil prices. But now they are acknowledging efforts to think about what happens if they are wrong.

An international regulatory body said this week that they are looking at setting new, enhanced leverage ratio requirements for the largest global banks, a move that echoes the higher standards in the U.S.' supplemental leverage ratio and demonstrates why going beyond international accords can influence the rest of the world.

The reverse mortgage industry is optimistic after recent reforms to the Home Equity Conversion Mortgage by the FHA and newfound respect from financial planners.

Financial services issues that helped define a presidency were largely absent from Tuesday's State of the Union address, including the crucial policy items that have not yet been resolved.

Prediction markets are the opposite of "yes men" — they're designed to induce experts to show what they really think. Could large banks, among the most siloed, opaque and politicized organizations around, use internal prediction markets to learn hard truths?

"Omnichannel" is an increasingly common term in the payments technology industry, but it means different things to different people.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development has rejected a nonprofit housing group's allegations of racial discrimination against U.S. Bank. HUD found that the bank properly maintain foreclosed homes in predominantly black and Hispanic neighborhoods and in some cases spent more rehabilitating the homes than in white areas.

The conventional wisdom is that MetLife is breaking itself up partly as a response to its designation as a systemically important company. But there is significant evidence that's wrong — here's why.

PayPal Holdings has named the head of a cryptocurrency firm to its board.

Community bankers and credit unions scored a significant victory while others in the mortgage industry lost out in the Federal Housing Finance Agency's final rule establishing membership standards for the Home Loan banks.

The insurance giant MetLife dropped a bombshell on Tuesday, saying it would separate a "substantial portion" of its U.S. retail segment, in part because of the current economic and regulatory environment.

MetLife plans to separate much of its U.S. retail business as Chief Executive Officer Steve Kandarian works to shrink the company to limit federal oversight.

The latest in BBVA Compass' ventures with fintech companies will bring it a simpler way to offer investment advice to the millions of households that typically don't qualify for it.

The agency scrapped a part of its 2014 proposal that would have required Home Loan bank members to maintain a certain percentage of residential mortgage assets in order to keep their membership. But it held fast on a provision that would disqualify captive insurance firms from membership.

Digital and alternative currencies are often cast as libertarian-friendly payment vehicles whose very mission engenders government antagonism. But in Canada, things are a bit friendlier.

Convictions of big banks have lacked any tangible consequences for perpetrators, leaving many still doubting that the government is serious about prosecuting large firms.

Fundation Group, an online small-business lender, has hired an industry veteran as its first chief operating officer.