Financial institutions

The Financial Stability Oversight Council put a careful foot forward Thursday on the path of designating the asset management industry as a potential economic threat.

American Banker has named online marketplace lending the Innovation of the Year. Matt Burton, CEO of Orchard Platform, explains how this booming business evolved out of peer-to-peer lending and whether alternative finance firms are competing with banks.

Orchard Platform CEO Matt Burton discusses how online marketplace lenders use data and technology to speed lending and improve transparency.

Online marketplace lending, a mushrooming business in the U.S. and the U.K., could take hold elsewhere, says Matt Burton, whose Orchard Platform is looking to expand its lender-support and analytical services internationally.

The CFPB sued Sprint on Wednesday, claiming it allowed illegal charges onto customer's cell phone bills. The case is likely to be a test of whether the agency has the power to oversee telecommunications firms.

U.S. lawmakers may follow their European counterparts and regulate bankers' pay if reforms aimed at ending government bailouts for lenders stall, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation Vice Chairman Thomas Hoenig said.

Officials at Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and Ginnie Mae all heaped praise on nonbank mortgage lenders for stepping up to provide loans for home purchases at a time when many banks have scaled back.

U.S. regulators are close to a final decision to label MetLife Inc. systemically important, two people with knowledge of the matter said, setting up a potential legal battle with the country's largest life insurer.

Although regulators say the bank's resolution plan still has "specific shortcomings," Wells Fargo appears closer than other banks in fulfilling the Dodd-Frank requirement.

The billionaire investor George Soros is in talks to throw his support behind the peer-to-peer finance industry, which is increasingly leaning on traditional capital sources to lower its costs of funding.

Growing income inequality is said to be a major reason most consumers plan to spend the same or less than last year on holiday shopping, and it could hurt bank and credit union revenues in the fourth quarter and present them other long-term challenges.

WASHINGTON — The Financial Stability Oversight Council needs a more formal system for monitoring its process for designating nonbanks as "systemically important," a watchdog said Thursday.