lending

On Thursday night, venture capitalist and DailyFinance columnist Peter Cohan went on CNBC's The Kudlow Report to debate whether the banking industry is at the start of a period of recovery, as Goldman Sachs claimed this week. Here's why he argued that Goldman was dead wrong.

For years, the property management business has been stuck in the Dark Ages -- using faxes, paper ledgers and out-of-date spreadsheet software. But as the foreclosure crisis adds millions of people to the rental market, new startup RentJuice is aiming to bring property management into the Internet Age.

The more lenient lending policies enacted by the Federal Reserve last month have so far failed to increase demand from small businesses, indicating that the federal government's attempts to spur the U.S. economy through more aggressive monetary policy may need more time to take effect.

Microloans for small businesses have taken off in Peru, where informal employment is high and access to credit is low. The nation now ranks No. 1 in the annual Economist Intelligence Unit survey of world's best business environments for microlending.

Last week, a Minnesota-based debt collection firm with a long history of shady practices and consumer complaints was slapped with a whopping $1.75 million fine by the Federal Trade Commission. It was the second-highest fine ever issued in a civil trial against a debt collection company. Among the...

A key index that measures small business lending rose 16% in September, its second consecutive month of double-digit increases. That rise in the Thomson Reuters/PayNet Small Business Lending Index is a strong signal that the U.S. economy is finally back on the road to recovery.

The Fed's latest Beige Book report confirms what earlier economic data has indicated. Eight of the 12 regional Fed banks, including San Francisco and Chicago, reported some form of growth in the September/October period. But nothing to write home about.

General Electric unit GE Capital announced Tuesday that it had acquired the retail finance portfolios from Citigroup's Retail Partner Cards. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, but GE Capital expects it will immediately add to earnings.

Mortgage applications fell 1.4% in the week ending Sept. 17, dragged down by a decline in the number of applications for loans to purchase houses. Applications for loans to purchase a home dropped 3.3% from a week earlier on a seasonally adjusted basis, The Mortgage Bankers Association said....

Bank of America (BAC) is reportedly laying off as many as 400 people as revenue from trading and advising clients falls. Bank of America, the country's largest bank by assets, is laying off people ranging from junior analysts to managing directors, Bloomberg News said without naming its sources....