Loans, Financial Institution | featured news

It is an open secret in the banking world: the interest rates for many mortgages and loans are based on a benchmark that is largely guesswork. The flaws in the rate-setting process, which is used to determine the pricing for trillions of dollars of financial products, have been exposed by the latest banking scandal. Regulators around the world are investigating whether big banks gamed the rates for their own benefit before and after the financial crisis.

Wells Fargo's profit jumped 13 percent in the first three months of the year, thanks to strong mortgage lending and a drop in delinquent loans, the bank said Friday.

The nation’s banks and credit unions had their best year since 2006, as a slowly recovering economy led to modest loan growth and lower levels of nonperforming loans.