MyBankTracker

HomeStreet Bank, a Seattle-based community bank, successfully raised $96 million in gross proceeds from an initial public offering that began on Friday. As the bell rang today, HMST was trading on the NASDAQ at $50.10, 13 percent above its offering price. HomeStreet was pushed into the IPO for regulatory reasons: the bank, like so many [...] MyBankTracker.com Read Full Story

J.P. Morgan Chase (NYSE: JPM) backed down amid a public-relations disaster last week, saying it would allow Helen Bailey, 78, of northern Nashville, to stay in her home for the duration of her life. Smack in the middle of their Black History Month campaign, Chase almost kicked the  former civil-rights activist out of her house [...] MyBankTracker.com Read Full Story

PayPal, the payments service that is nearly ubiquitous on the Internet, has just launched its first real world, physical, plastic card — and it’s not a credit card. PayPal, in a partnership with NetSpend Corp. and MasterCard, opted instead to go the prepaid debit route. Now, those with an existing PayPal account can get a [...] MyBankTracker.com Read Full Story

The Federal Reserve approved the $9 billion acquisition of ING Direct by Capital One, which plans to close the purchase this week. The deal comes after months of anticipation, a delayed Fed meeting and a slew of speculation about the deal’s fate. The deal means that Capital One (NYSE: COF) will become the fifth largest [...] MyBankTracker.com Read Full Story

We still don’t have hoverboards, but the future as depicted by Hollywood is always inching closer to reality. A Lithuanian tech firm, Etronika, recently developed a beta version of a banking application that syncs with Microsoft’s Kinect, a motion-sensing device that is typically used to make video games more physically interactive. Soon, perhaps, you’ll be [...] MyBankTracker.com Read Full Story

One way to combat the low rates that plague bank customers is to open a rewards checking account, which can pay more than most 5-year CDs. But qualifying for such special rates isn’t easy. Not to be confused with accounts that offer high yield interest checking, such as those from Capital One and Incredible Bank, [...] MyBankTracker.com Read Full Story

Banking is about as popular with American consumers as Big Tobacco and the federal government, which is to say: not very. According to Harris Interactive’s annual Reputational Quotient (RQ) survey, which was released today, the banking industry suffered serious damage to its reputation last year. Four of the five biggest drops in RQ were suffered [...] MyBankTracker.com Read Full Story

Citibank’s iPad app had an interesting day in the media last week. On the very same day the app got a glowing write-up in American Banker, it received a less-than-stellar  write-up in the New York Times’ Dealbook. While AB praised the bank for the app’s inventiveness, Dealbook documented how it had a serious flaw: it sometimes [...] MyBankTracker.com Read Full Story

Wire transfers are one of the fastest ways to send money to family and friends around the world. Although many consumers turn to money transmitters such as Western Union and MoneyGram for wire transfer services, there are instances when banks offer the better deal — especially for domestic transfers. At money transmitters, the fees vary [...] MyBankTracker.com Read Full Story

The FDIC failed two banks Friday, Charter National Bank and Trust of Hoffman Estates, Ill., and SCB Bank of Shelbyville, Ind., bringing 2012′s bank failure total to nine. SCB Bank’s failure marks Indiana’ second failure since the crisis. Notably, both were closed by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, and not state regulators. [...] MyBankTracker.com Read Full Story