Pittsburgh Ranks High for Consumer Banking from the Pittsburgh Business Times
"The competitive banking landscape -- 105 branches per 100,000 residents -- and what NerdWallet calls an "above average percentage of fully banked households (74 percent) -- landed Pittsburgh as No. 2 to only Cincinnati. On the downside is the high checking account fees, $14 a month.
Cincinnati, by comparison, had average checking fees of only $10 a month."

PNC to Shut 200 Branches as Part of $700 Million in Cuts from the
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
"PNC Financial Services Group disclosed plans on Tuesday to close about 200 retail branches this year as part of a plan to reduce expenses by $700 million in a tough operating environment for banks. PNC spokeswoman Amy Vargo said it is too early to say how many Pittsburgh-area branches and jobs will be eliminated."

Post-Gazette Series Pt. 1

Number of Banks in Region Plunges a Third Since '94 from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
"Of the top 25 retail banks in the seven-county Pittsburgh region in the 1980s, just nine are in business today. Although they survived the 1983 collapse, they couldn't survive regulatory changes and the most recent financial meltdown."

Why Doesn’t Your Company Offer its Employees Health Insurance? from the Pittsburgh Business Times
“Our company, in fact our entire industry, is built around subcontractors. Giving health care benefits is not common practice for most people in our industry because of this fact.”

Private Student Loan Troubles Echo Mortgage Complaints from the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
"Chris Young knew he had committed to years of payments when he took out nearly $80,000 in private loans for college. But he never thought he’d be stuck with a debt he couldn’t afford. Initially, it didn’t look that way. The 2007 Duquesne University graduate was working at a weekly newspaper in 2009 and paying about $350 a month on his private loans when he learned his monthly payment was doubling, effective immediately."

Energy Boom, Europe's Financial Woes Driving Pittsburgh Firms' Global Expansions from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
"Local firms, which retrenched during the recession, are again looking to open new offices, both domestically and overseas."

EDITORIAL!!

Now or Later: Payday Lending is Bad News for Pennsylvanians from the Editorial Board of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
"The Legislature should resist the lobbyists who would push high interest rates on people who live paycheck to paycheck."

PROFILE!!

Tillotson Fleming: Advocacy Key to Pittsburgh (Photos) from the Pittsburgh Business Times
"The Chairman and CEO of Hefren-Tillotson, Inc., a privately-held wealth management firm, has sung Pittsburgh’s charms so convincingly that one listener asked if she was the mayor."

Insurance Companies are Slow to Cover Risks of Drilling from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
"One company has written an exclusion that forces clients working with oil and gas companies to obtain additional coverage. An industry group drafted a memo encouraging brokers to brush up on potential liabilities, even including knowledge of the rare earthquakes said to be a byproduct of some industry practices. The changes represent another form of growing pains for the far-reaching drilling industry and the ancillary businesses it involves."

EDITORIAL!!

A Bad Deal: Short-term Loan Bill Means Long-term Disgrace from the Editorial Board of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
"This proposal would allow predatory lenders to hurt the poor in Pennsylvania."

PMC: Masters of their Fate (Jeffery Fraser) from the Pittsburgh Quarterly 
"How PNC became the fifth largest U.S. bank during the economy's darkest days."

Wheeling Woman's Fight with Debt Collectors Goes on Air from the Pittsburgh Tribune Review
"Diana Mey has played David to some of the biggest Goliaths of her time, winning judgments worth millions of dollars from telemarketers, debt collection agencies and credit card companies. In August, a West Virginia circuit court judge awarded her $10.8 million in a lawsuit in which she alleged harassment and violations of state law after debt collectors threatened her with sexual assault over a debt she did not owe."