Jelena McWilliams explains the agency's decision to enlist the help of tech innovators to modernize a reporting process that the coronavirus epidemic has exposed as outdated.
Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said about 300 lenders have signed on to the program and that the central bank is committed to making adjustments that could attract more borrowers.
The coronavirus outbreak forced BBVA USA to rethink a plan to add 15 branches in Texas, but it decided to move ahead anyway, albeit with a few tweaks.
Some observers said the central bank should have suspended dividends entirely in response to an unprecedented economic emergency caused by the pandemic. Others said its more cautious moves were appropriate because big banks' capital is strong and the economy could bounce back.
Now perhaps more than ever, banks and their proxies need to show tact when communicating with past-due borrowers.
Participation in the Main Street Lending Program for midsize companies is partly about public service, but the core business rationale is building "a banking relationship that continues on for some time," the Boston Fed chief says.
The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency will use year-end 2019 asset totals in its calculating its next assessment, saying national banks "should not be penalized" for adding emergency loans to their books during the pandemic.
In a new twist on an old scam, cybercriminals have tried to get thousands of people to surrender their Wells bank account information by sending authentic-looking emails containing malicious links that lead to a fake website bearing the company's name.
Business owners are changing banks at three times normal levels, a trend researchers attribute to their difficulty in obtaining emergency loans. If the forgiveness stage of the Paycheck Protection Program proves arduous, that rate could climb much higher.
Worried about a lack of demand and that some of their customers are ineligible, community banks are still on the fence about participating in the effort to back loans for businesses recovering from the pandemic crisis.