Bank channel

The head of the state bank supervisors' group said he sees a quiet push to "reform our regulatory structure to better reflect the business models of our largest banks."

Regions Insurance hired the owner and two associates of The Hanback Group, an independent insurance brokerage and human resources consulting firm, to lead the employee benefits practice in Nashville.

Call it the second wave of the mortgage-refinancing collapse. Prepayment penalty income is about to crash. Hard. Especially in New York.

Advisor Ryan Beal gave away most of his clients-and then built back up-to focus exclusively on cops and firefighters. Their personalities and senses of humor are similar to his own, plus they have good retirement packages. And he gets to ride on a fire truck to boot.

"We need to grow substantially," said Brent Smith, the new program manager at the Lititz, Pa., bank, who issued a mandate to double revenue over the next three to five years.

Markets are pretty efficient in the long-term but can be wildly inefficient in the short-term. And the short-term is where advisors can provide value to clients.

As advisors look to protect clients' assets, and lock in steady income streams as well, they're changing the ingredients they use. They're adding new products to the mix with an eye-always-toward allaying the anxieties of their conservative clients.

Deutsche Bank's Chip Packard and Haig Ariyan discuss lessons the industry learned in the past five years.

The firm added three advisors in the Palm Beach market, where business is growing.

The former central region president will now oversee the Private Client Reserve and its 1,300 financial professionals nationwide

Banks have aimed their efforts too broadly at the mass-affluent, a diffuse and broad swath of customers. Instead, they should pursue the “rising mass affluent,” a segment with the most potential for accumulating wealth, according to Booz & Company.

Sendhil Mullainathan, the former head of research at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, speaks in an interview about when it's appropriate, and when it's not, for the government to try to influence consumer behavior.

JPMorgan has named a former U.S. Bancorp executive as the head of its wealth management business.

Since the crisis, this segment has focused on paying its debt, but now it’s investing for retirement again. The kicker: just 40% use advisors.

Assets held at direct-to-investor accounts have nearly doubled since 2008 and are outpacing growth at traditional channels, according to a Cerulli report.

Revenue is stalling and expenses keep rising at numerous community banks — and investors are getting impatient with the worst offenders.

JPMorgan, under siege on multiple fronts by state and federal prosecutors investigating alleged wrongdoing at the largest U.S. bank, is in talks with federal prosecutors in New York to resolve allegations it helped facilitate Bernard Madoff’s crimes.

Wealth management services generated $7.5 million in revenue, up nearly $2 million, or 34%, from $5.6 million in the same quarter last year.

The wealth management business generated $111 million in third-quarter revenue, up 35.4% from $82 million last year.

CEO Jamie Dimon went to Washington almost a month ago to see if U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder would settle a criminal probe of mortgage fraud at the bank if it paid more money to resolve related civil investigations.