Economy

FHA loosens condo owner-occupancy rules and pledges to make further changes to facilitate condo financing.

The advisory committee established to address defects in the equity markets was stacked with industry insiders and, more troubling, includes firms implicated in serious wrongdoing.

Apple is reportedly adding person-to-person payments to Apple Pay, based on technology from the bank-run clearXchange network. If this feature comes to market, it will face many competing systems that run on Apple's own handsets.

The top Democrat on the House Small Business Committee is looking into what regulators are doing to protect small-business borrowers who use online lenders.

A handful of entrepreneurs have created apps that let workers, especially those with inconsistent incomes, receive portions of their paychecks before payday. Their emergence underscores how slower payments look out of date in an on-demand world.

The Treasury Department has recently solicited input on how to improve marketplace lending. Here are four ways to help improve access to credit.

Amazon is constantly unleashing new payment-related products and services. Some efforts succeed, some fail and the rest are a mixed bag — but regardless of the outcome, retailers have a golden opportunity to learn from Amazon's experimentation.

Barclaycard's first range of wearable bPay devices never looked like they had a home on the fashion runway, but the issuer is betting the fashion brand TopShop can make it in vogue.

WASHINGTON — Four Federal Home Loan Banks have recruited 74 members to participate in their new Mortgage Partnership Finance jumbo loan program.

There were at least two bad omens for large banks in the Republican debate held late Tuesday — even the most business-friendly candidates felt free to sharply criticize them and many seemed ill-informed about the current system.

A lot is riding on the effectiveness of internal models to determine capital levels, but regulators still allow banks' methodology to be too opaque.

Legacy core systems make banks vulnerable to new competitors and risks. Modernization is underway, but many institutions are not moving fast enough. The risk of waiting too long is that it will take too long to catch up.

The added clarity provided by the Federal Housing Administration's revised single-family handbook comes at the expense of lender flexibility to get loans qualified, including a popular workaround for borrowers with deferred student loan debt.

The American Bankers Association is deemphasizing the crisis-era fight over regulation and refocusing on the rising competitive threat posed by technology companies.

With Visa Inc. set to merge with Visa Europe, the U.S. company stands to benefit from the experience its London-based counterpart has in mobile and digital payments. It could also supercharge these projects with added resources.

Fannie Mae was affected by the same derivatives accounting mismatch that led to Freddie Mac's first quarterly loss in four years. But its bulk and balance sheet provided enough cushion for the larger of the two government-sponsored enterprises to post a profit for the third quarter.

The regulators' annual Shared National Credits review found nearly 10% of large, syndicated credits demonstrated some form of weakness, most of which were leveraged loans. But renewed concerns about energy loans also cropped up.

Raj Date, the consumer bureau's former deputy director, said Thursday regulators need to be flexible, responsive and use discretion when it comes to dealing with financial technology startups.

Fannie Mae will pay the U.S. Treasury Department $2.2 billion after reporting a net income of $2 billion for the third quarter.

The relevant question is no longer whether new regulations will come for the fast-growing industry, but what form they should take.