This week will be a momentous one for the country’s small and midsized banks. A number of these financial institutions are set to report earnings in the days ahead, thus showing the fuller impact of the outflow of deposits during the recent banking crisis, a...
America’s treasury secretary is warning of a tougher lending environment following two recent bank failures. In a Sunday (April 16) CNN interview, Janet Yellen said that such a pull back could affect the Federal Reserve campaign to raise interest rates. “Banks are likely to become...
Following its recent earnings report in early March, fashion retailer Nordstrom has announced the upcoming launch of nine additional stores for its Nordstrom Rack off-price retail concept. Most of the stores are planned to debut in the spring of 2024, while one store is scheduled...
Best Buy has reportedly eliminated hundreds of roles in its brick-and-mortar stores. The cuts are centered on the electronics and appliance retailer’s “consultants” who focus on selling computers, smartphones and other complex products, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported Friday (April 14), citing unnamed sources. With these consultant...
ChatGPT and GPT-4 developer OpenAI has a new competitor. It’s Elon Musk. News broke Friday (April 14) that the firebrand owner of Tesla, Twitter and SpaceX, among other companies, has been quietly amassing the processors and engineers to create artificial intelligence (AI) tech to rival...
Non-federally chartered banks will soon be able to make Small Business Administration (SBA) loans. Effective May 12, the agency is lifting the moratorium on licensing new Small Business Lending Companies (SBLCs), adding a new type of lending entity called a Community Advantage SBLC and removing...
In retail, get ready for the “big reconsideration.” The latest retail sales data released Friday (April 14) show that in March — and for the second straight month — consumers pulled back their spending. Overall, the data from the U.S. Census Bureau shows that spending...
Restaurant loyalty program use has broadly increased in the past year, but that increase has begun to plateau in recent months. Moreover, quick-service restaurant (QSR) customers remain far more likely to use loyalty programs than table-service restaurant customers, but when offered, consumers will use loyalty...
Everyday consumer goods are the primary target of organized retail crime (ORC) rings. Eighty-one percent of ORC groups focus on everyday consumer goods while only 11% target luxury goods, the National Retail Federation (NRF) said in a Friday (April 14) report. ORC groups have found...
