Financial institutions

It's a fickle industry, given the uncertainty over the Affordable Care Act and government reimbursements, but opportunities in lending to medical practices and device manufacturers make it hard to resist, bankers say.

Organizers of Piermont Bank said in their application with the FDIC that they want to raise $100 million and eventually operate in several urban coastal communities.

Good old-fashioned commercial credit analysts are a dying breed, David Nicholson says. Community banks need them to stay competitive in C&I, but training courses have been cut back. So he’s on a mission to teach as many students as he can.

The Chicago-based Hutchinson, Shockey, Erley & Co. focuses exclusively on municipal securities.

The proposed Piermont Bank would be based in Midtown Manhattan. It is the second de novo being planned in New York.

They are disinclined to talk about it much yet, but the big three trust banks as well as JPMorgan and Goldman are said to be mulling custody services that would help shield wealthy bitcoin investors from theft. Here are the selling points and the risks.

The central bank’s dividend waiver rule has severely limited the formation of mutual holding companies.

JPMorgan Chase, SunTrust and PNC are pressuring outside counsel to get more women and minority lawyers to represent them in court even at the risk of alienating the big, traditional law firms that they have done business with for years.

Bank organizers are picking one another's brains about hiring decisions, applications and raising capital as part of the monthslong effort to secure charters.

Year to date through Mar. 31, 2018. Dollars in thousands.

Full-time equivalent, as of Mar. 31, 2018. Dollars in thousands.

Year to date through Mar. 31, 2018. Dollars in thousands.

Consumers are back to their old spending and saving habits; Trump administration is encouraging financial innovation; how the financial crisis shaped today's politics; and more from this week's most-read stories.

Tekalign Gedamu, who would chair Marathon International Bank, says that Zekarias Tamrat is bad-mouthing the de novo effort following his dismissal and a subsequent payment disagreement. Tamrat was slated to be the bank's president.

Tory Nixon, who became Umpqua's chief banking officer this spring, is trying to drive more customers to use mobile banking (only 15% do so now industrywide) without alienating them in the process.

Readers react to Wells Fargo's latest penalty, weigh in on the Vatican's criticism of credit default swaps and opine on the long tail of the financial crisis.

Zekarias Tamrat blamed the proposed Marathon International Bank's chairman and directors for delays in getting its application approved.

Echoing House members, five Republican senators called on the Federal Reserve Board to rethink its surcharge in order to eliminate “excessive” capital requirements.

Credit union trade groups are lauding the Senate's move to provide $250 million for the Treasury Department's Community Development Financial Institutions fund.

A task force created by the American Bankers Association asserts that applying for a bank charter is too time-consuming and that some de novo rules are too rigid.