Banking

Appraisal management companies must self-regulate their prices unless they want the government to do it for them.

Net income was also aided by a sharp drop in the provision for credit losses as chargeoffs on energy loans continued to decline.

The Virginia bank has agreed to buy Tidewater Mortgage's majority stake in Old Point Mortgage.

Expanded lending across a broad range of categories and extremely low unemployment in Hawaii pushed up the Honolulu bank's quarterly profit.

Associated Banc-Corp in Green Bay, Wis., reported a sharp increase in profits on a mix of higher fee income and lower credit costs.

Quarterly profit fell at SunTrust Banks in Atlanta as noninterest expense rose 8.4% and its loan-loss provision increased.

The Connecticut bank said a spike in business lending and residential mortgages gave its fourth-quarter earnings a boost.

Fourth-quarter profits at Wintrust Financial in Rosemont, Ill., climbed 65% to $54.6 million from a year earlier, helped largely by acquisitions and increases in mortgage banking and other fee income.

Commercial real estate loan growth and the Hudson City acquisition fueled fourth-quarter profit growth at M&T Bank in Buffalo, N.Y.

Three midsize banks projected increases in loans this year in the latest round of earnings discussions, but their levels of optimism varied, and their commercial lending strategies in some cases conflicted.

The Michigan company expects a recently announced mortgage initiative to produce solid growth in 2017.

Moody's Corp. agreed to pay almost $864 million to resolve a multiyear U.S. investigation into credit ratings on subprime mortgage securities, helping to clear the way for the firm to move beyond its crisis-era litigation.

The company sued the former director over the debt, which disqualified him from board service.

The Columbus, Ga., bank reported higher fourth-quarter profit on growth in business loans and mortgage banking.

JPMorgan Chase's net mortgage banking revenue for the fourth quarter was $1.69 billion, an increase of just 1% over the same period in 2015.

Bank of America Corp.'s fourth-quarter mortgage revenue almost doubled to $519 million from a year earlier.

Banks have started reconsidering how much they are willing to pay for low-income housing tax credits as expectations of a Trump tax cut surge, slowing down some projects already and threatening developers with heavier financing burdens.

PNC's fourth-quarter profit improved on higher lending to corporate customers for real estate and other loans.

Wells Fargo, which lost its status as the world's most valuable lender after a scandal in its retail bank, said profit dropped 5.4% as revenue from its mortgage business declined.

A unit of M&T Bank in Buffalo, N.Y., has bought certain operations of Philadelphia mortgage firm Carey, Kramer, Pettit, Panichelli & Associates.