Recent News
Developers have been scrambling to patch a newly discovered vulnerability in Bash, a widely used piece of code that interprets user commands for a computer. Bash has existed for 25 years and is utilized by the hundreds of millions of computers worldwide running Unix, Linux and Mac OS X operating systems. The flaw allows hackers to access a device and slip in malicious code, taking over the computer. The hacker can make the device or server do just about anything from becoming part of a botnet to stealing customer account information. Banks' core systems and servers often run on Linux or... Read more
The Department of Defense has proposed an overhaul of rules regulating predatory lending to military personnel. The proposal would expand the 36% APR cap on payday, auto-title and tax refund anticipation loans to cover all closed- or open-end loans, ending the current practice of lenders evading the rate cap by offering slightly longer or more expensive loans. The new rules would also require creditors to provide military borrowers with additional disclosures, including a document encouraging the service member to seek options other than high-cost credit. Creditors would also be prohibited... Read more
A new study finds that many homeowners neglected a chance to save money by refinancing their mortgages. After the recession, the Fed took action to boost the economy by pushing interest rates to record lows. In December 2010, 20 percent of American households with fixed-rate mortgages should have taken advantage of the low rates by refinancing—but didn’t. The median homeowner could have saved over $45,000 over the life of the loan. When lending non-profit Neighborhood Housing Services of Chicago organized a mailing campaign offering refinancing help, just 17 percent of recipients... Read more
The imminent replacement of magstripes with EMV chips in credit and debit cards will end a golden age of identity theft brought on by flaws inherent in the decades-old infrastructure. Most card scams take advantage of the magstripe’s basic security flaw: that static characters encoded into the stripe hold all the authentication information needed to produce a flawless counterfeit card. In contrast, EMV transactions, which rely on single-use cryptograms, make eavesdropping with a simple card reader fruitless to criminals. Since the UK deployed EMV cards in 2004, card fraud has fallen 32... Read more
Subprime auto lenders have adopted a dystopian method for extracting payments from their customers: installing remote GPS trackers and kill switches into borrowers' cars. The so-called starter interrupt devices allow lenders to remotely disable the ignition until borrowers return calls from debt collectors. The devices can also alert lenders to signs of trouble — for instance if the borrower is no longer traveling to their regular place of employment. Some borrowers say their cars were disabled when they were only a few days behind on their payments, leaving them stranded in unfamiliar... Read more
Former President of Citibank Illinois Darryl Hendricks has come out of retirement to become director of consumer banking at Chicago-based Urban Partnership Bank. A Harlem native, Hendricks spent 30 years with Citibank, the last 10 of them as Illinois president. “I'm going back to the kind of community I once came out of... We want to be a reasonable alternative to payday loans and check cashing operations in our marketplace,” Hendricks said. He's the latest African-American veteran of larger Chicago financial institutions to join Urban Partnership in order to support... Read more
Walmart is teaming up with Green Dot, known for its prepaid payment cards, to supply checking accounts available nationwide by the end of October. The new accounts, called GoBank, are intended as low-cost alternatives to traditional bank checking accounts, with no fees for overdrafts or bounced checks and no minimum account balance. The accounts will cost $8.95 a month for customers with direct deposits totaling less than $500 a month. To help attract customers, Walmart and Green Dot will forgo a screening system many banks use to vet potential customers and rely instead on a proprietary... Read more
A survey of community bankers by the Conference of State Bank Supervisors finds banks striving to adapt to new developments in technology and regulation at a time of steady growth. The report also contains insights gleaned from town hall discussions in 30 states. Bankers expressed concern about new qualified mortgage regulations but continue to issue residential mortgages, suggesting the rules may generally be in line with bank practices while still requiring significant changes in operations. Banks are now looking to expand primarily in technology, including mobile banking, online loan... Read more
A large data breach at Home Depot has started to trigger fraudulent transactions that are rippling across financial institutions and draining cash from customer bank accounts. The fraudulent transactions are showing up across the U.S. as criminals use stolen card information to buy prepaid cards, electronics and even groceries. Home Depot has said that 56 million cards may have been exposed in a five-month attack on its payment terminals. The size of the Home Depot breach makes the attack significantly larger and lengthier than the 40 million cards that were compromised in the Target... Read more
Southern Bancorp in Arkadelphia, Ark. is using mobile technology to offer consumers outside the mainstream a better alternative to payday loans. "The product that strips more wealth and assets from the most vulnerable people in America is predatory lending or payday lending," says Dominik Mjartan, senior vice president of the bank. But payday products have a stubborn appeal; regulatory constraints and disclosure requirements make it difficult for banks to compete with their speed. Now, Southern is closing the convenience gap with a new core-processing system and app... Read more
The CDFI Fund has opened the FY 2015 funding round for the CDFI and NACA Programs. The Administration’s FY 2015 Budget for the CDFI Fund requests $201 million in Financial Assistance and Technical Assistance awards, including $151 million for CDFI Program awards, $35 million for the Healthy Food Financing Initiative awards and $15 million for NACA Program awards. The awards support CDFIs providing affordable financing and related services to low-income communities and populations that lack access to credit, capital and financial services. The deadline for submission of the CDFI Program and... Read more
Broadway Financial, parent company of Broadway Federal Bank in Los Angeles, plans to raise nearly $10 million through a private placement. The company said it intends to sell about 8.9 million shares of common stock, including 1.9 million voting shares. "Upon consummation of these transactions, we will have completed the restructuring of the company's balance sheet, enhanced the liquidity of the company and positioned the bank for growth," CEO Wayne Bradshaw said. The announcement comes a year after Broadway shed roughly $25 million... Read more
Albina Community Bancorp in Portland, Ore., has filed for bankruptcy. Albina had been deferring interest payments to Hildene Capital Management for five years. The hedge fund invested in a collateralized debt obligation backed by Albina's debt. But the bank has been operating under a written agreement with the Federal Reserve Board that forbids it from paying its trust-preferred debt without regulatory approval. Hildene had threatened to force the company into involuntary liquidation if it defaulted. The company's board resigned as of the bankruptcy filing, which showed $7... Read more
The annual Temenos banking survey has found growing anxiety among bankers about competition from tech giants. Respondents say their institutions are taking steps toward innovation, but nevertheless doubt that banks will make major updates to mission-critical systems until regulators force them to. Twenty-three percent of banks identify competition from tech vendors as a concern and 67 percent intend to boost IT spending. Customer loyalty was an even greater concern – and 30 percent of bankers said it was their biggest worry. One solution: building a better branch. Although the importance... Read more
A federal judge shut down two online payday lenders operating under the umbrella of the Hydra Group after the CFPB and FTC said they extracted more than $36 million from customers who never agreed to loans. The operations bought personal data about people who were researching loans at other websites, deposited unsolicited money in their accounts and debited finance charges that exceeded the amount of the deposits. When some consumers tried to stop their banks from debiting the money, the companies produced fake loan documents testifying to the debt. The lenders made mostly unsolicited... Read more
A new analysis of Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data by the Urban Institute shows that the current tight credit environment has disproportionately affected African American and Hispanic households. African American and Hispanic borrowers took out a greater share of mortgages as housing prices neared their peak, the worst time to take out a loan. Then, as prices began to drop, tightened credit standards left many unable to obtain or refinance a loan. From 2005 to 2012, the share of loans made to African American and Hispanic households dropped from 23 percent to 12 percent, locking many... Read more
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has proposed bringing the financing units of the big automakers under federal supervision for the first time, a move that would let the agency examine the lending arms of Toyota, Ford and Honda. The bureau has grown concerned that some car buyers are being steered into expensive loans when they qualify for cheaper ones and being misled about the terms and benefits of add-on products. The proposed rule would extend the bureau’s current oversight of bank auto lenders to cover 38 auto finance companies that make, acquire or refinance 10,000 or more... Read more
A new startup, TrueAccord, hopes to bring debt collection into the internet age. The company, which recently attracted $5 million in venture capital funding, uses behavioral analysis make debt collections less intimidating. TrueAccord tailors its campaigns to debtors, building a profile of the consumer and figure out the right course of action to collect on a debt. "I've been sitting here listening to breakup songs and eating ice cream because I feel like you're avoiding me," says one message targeted at millennials, who enjoy ironic humor according to TrueAccord’s data. TrueAccord uses... Read more
Brandon, Miss.-based Community Bancshares continues to run far ahead of the state’s other banks in the amount of money loaned to businesses through the Small Business Administration. The bank has led the pack since 2010. From Oct. 1 through Aug. 31, Community Bancshares made 80 businesses more than $47 million in SBA loans. The company is one of only a handful of Mississippi banks the SBA designates as “Preferred Lending Partners,” authorizing the banks to approve SBA loans without the lengthy reviews normally required. “You know they know this stuff very well and can go... Read more
Hildene Capital Management, a New York distressed-debt hedge fund, has threatened Portland, Ore.’s Albina Community Bancorp with involuntary bankruptcy if it defaults on its trust-preferred debt. Albina has been deferring interest on its trust-preferreds for five years and will soon default on about $6 million in debt and accrued interest if it doesn't pay. Complicating matters, Albina is currently under regulatory orders barring them from paying trust-preferred creditors. Last year, Albina sold a 90% stake in its bank to Beneficial State Bancorp in... Read more