Expense management

When the superregional bank sold its insurance business for $10.1 billion, it laid out three ways to use the proceeds: buybacks, a balance sheet repositioning and loan growth. The latter plan is so far proving to be elusive.

Two days after the megabank was hit with $136 million of fines, Citi executives said they aren't changing the company's full-year expense guidance. Citi has 30 days to submit a plan to regulators showing that the bank has allocated enough resources to achieve compliance in a timely and sustainable manner.

Larger banks are responsible for a special assessment to cover the costs of the failures of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank. The price tag has ballooned by $4.1 billion, and trade groups are criticizing the FDIC's process, arguing that it lacks transparency.

After the Rhode Island-based company eliminated 650 positions, severance-related costs contributed to a 71% decline in quarterly net income.

Across the industry, the pace of branch shutdowns slowed this year. Still, large financial institutions continued to trim their physical footprints, with two super-regional banks taking the most aggressive actions.

The Pittsburgh-based regional bank expects to save $325 million next year as it reduces its staff by 4%. Executives said the cuts are necessary because revenue has fallen amid a surge in interest rates and a decline in loan volumes.

Headcount at the nation's second-largest bank has fallen by around 1,000 since the end of last month. More job reductions are in the works after noninterest expenses rose by 6% during the first quarter.

The San Francisco bank tallied $2.2 billion in net operating losses, higher than in any quarter since late 2017. The charges offset what otherwise would have been a strong third-quarter performance.

The nation's largest bank indicated Monday that it may again offer home equity lines of credit to a wide audience. Rising mortgage rates have made the product more attractive after a long drought when low rates suppressed demand.

The bank's noninterest expenses fell by 8% in the second quarter — a sign that CEO Charlie Scharf is making progress in reining in spending that had been soaring in recent years amid heightened regulatory scrutiny. He ultimately hopes to reduce gross expenditures by $8 billion annually.

CEO Charlie Scharf disappointed investors by failing to provide either a detailed road map for long-term expense reductions or say when he might release such a plan.

Altisource Portfolio Solutions cut its previous-quarter net loss by 49% in its most recent fiscal period, when property maintenance revenue and new Hubzu real estate auction site inventory increased.

Borrowers were more than twice as likely to use a lender they found online in 2018 as they were in 2017, making search engines the mortgage industry's top source of referrals.

The company will shutter the offices it inherited when it bought EverBank in 2017 and focus on lending to existing customers through digital channels. U.S. Bank will assume the leases on about 25 properties.

Altisource Portfolio Solutions plans to discontinue its buy-renovate-lease-sell business for single-family homes and sell its short-term inventory in order to cut costs and repay debt.

Wells Fargo will lay off 1,000 workers primarily from its mortgage unit in the first major round of a previously announced plan to cut the bank's workforce by as much as 10% over the next three years.

The cuts are part of a broader effort to trim expenses by roughly $3 billion a year by 2020.

Banks could shed as much as 20 million square feet of office space over the next five years as they shift many functions to high-tech operations centers in markets with cheaper rents.

The Seattle company is firing 127 people, or a tenth of its mortgage staff, after enduring months of slow activity.

The Seattle company has faced criticism from an investor over its commitment to the business, which lost money in the first quarter.