Economy

Loan demand, which bankers say remained weak well after the recession, is picking up, and the industry is adjusting business models to meet it. But banks may want to act fast.

Starbucks' decision to support Apple Pay within the coffee chain's mobile payment app seems like a natural alliance of two major forces in mobile payments, but it raises a significant question: Why not do the same with Square, with which Starbucks has much deeper ties?

A recent research paper found that community banks' assets, along with market share in most types of commercial lending, have fallen since the Dodd-Frank Act was passed. The report is giving advocates of smaller institutions more data to rally around.

Fidelity Investments and Federated Investors are walking clients through major changes in the $2.7 trillion money fund business as banks fear another blow to funding.

In a wide-ranging interview, the head of the Cleveland Fed talks about her support for a two-tiered regulatory system, the biggest threats facing the system, interest-rate risk, culture and cybersecurity.

Gary Patton Hall Jr. hid underperforming and at-risk loans from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and the bank's loan committee, the Federal Bureau of Investigation said in its indictment Thursday.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren said community banks have continued to be profitable despite new rules under the Dodd-Frank Act while raising fresh warnings about unnecessary changes to the financial reform law in the guise of regulatory relief.

Elected officials in Santa Fe and Seattle are considering plans to form municipal banks to promote affordable housing and reach out to the underbanked. Bankers are wary since such institutions could present competition.

ApplePie Capital, a new marketplace lender that specializes in lending to franchises, has officially opened for business.

Westpac New Zealand is launching a new "omnichannel" powered by responsive design technology and offering its customers Moven's money management tools, two firsts for the industry.

GOP lawmakers on Wednesday harshly criticized the Federal Housing Administration's recent move to lower insurance premiums, saying it violates the law and will be used to entice borrowers into predatory loans.

Thirty-four percent of merchants interviewed late last year for an Aite Group research report on EMV readiness had never heard of the U.S. migration to EMV-chip payment cards, despite the fast-approaching October 2015 deadline set by the card networks.

It may take years for most small merchants to accept EMV-chip cards in the U.S., but the country's ultimate goal of adopting the secure payment technology is coming together faster than what was seen in other EMV markets.

Outcries about regulators' negligence in ending too big to fail ignore a number of major developments since the financial crisis, including the new orderly liquidation authority and the overhaul of the regulatory capital framework.

Big banks and institutional investors picked up the pace of loan approvals for small businesses in January, while small banks and alternative lenders continued to see their approval rates decline, according to a monthly lending index.

In unusually expansive comments, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Director Richard Cordray provided new details Tuesday about proposals due soon from the agency while offering insights into an internal battle over easing a key mortgage rule.

A better way to deal with the "too big to fail" problem would be to impose higher capital requirements or to issue "rescue" bonds to bank investors.

Apple's mobile wallet has been out for just four months, and already it has shaken up the way mobile payments operate at the point of sale. It has faced pushback from some merchants and banks, but it has also popularized new forms of security and other payment technology.

Samsung is widely reported to be adding mobile-payment technology from LoopPay to its next Galaxy smartphone. Such an approach would be vastly different from that of Apple, PayPal or MCX's CurrentC — and it would address a key issue with LoopPay's own business model.

The online loan marketplace Lending Club has formed a partnership with a nationwide network of community bankers.