Three former J.P. Morgan veterans have opened a new “special situations” advisory firm in Stamford, established “to provide corporate finance and restructuring advice to companies dealing with operational and financial difficulties,” according to a statement.

A U.S. District Court judge in Minnesota has dismissed the majority of claims lodged by consumer credit scoring giant Fair Isaac Corp. (FICO) against Stamford’s VantageScore Solutions, which was created by EquiFax, Experian and TransUnion as an alternative to FICO.

Private equity firm Warburg Pincus has announced plans to invest up to $115 million in Waterbury’s Webster Financial Corp., parent company of Webster Bank, in a deal that could potentially open a door to the bank’s eventual sale.

Rhode Island’s Newport Bancorp, which operates a branch of Newport Federal Savings Bank in Stonington, has reported a 43 percent drop in year-over-year net income in the second quarter, to $91,000, as branch opening expenses in the first half of the year helped eat into gains made in total assets and deposits.

Federal prosecutors say a Hartford man has pleaded guilty to running a fraudulent check scheme.

A clean balance sheet containing no foreclosed properties and a $19 million boost in deposits helped Essex Savings Bank increase its assets by $12.4 million in the first nine months of its fiscal year, the bank said in a statement.

Sentiments on the condition of the state’s credit markets have fallen to their lowest level on record, surpassing recent lows set in the third quarter of last year, according to a recent joint survey by the Connecticut Business and Industry Association and TD Banknorth.

Willimantic’s SI Financial Group, parent company of Savings Institute Bank and Trust Co., has reported a net loss of $619,000 for the second quarter, and a net loss of $563,000 for the first half of the year, as rising nonperforming loans continued to necessitate higher loan loss provisions.

Citing the impact of heightened credit costs and deteriorating asset quality, Fitch Ratings has downgraded several key ratings for Waterbury’s Webster Financial Corp., parent company of Webster Bank.

Hudson Valley Bank’s Milford branch has opened at 54 Broad St., the bank’s first branch in New Haven County.

A former employee of a New Milford bank accused of plundering customer accounts for three decades has pleaded guilty to a federal bank fraud charge.

Hudson City Bancorp Inc., parent of Hudson City Savings Bank, the largest savings and loan in the country, said second-quarter profit rose 16 percent as increases in mortgage lending and deposits offset a jump in bad loans. Hudson City operates nine branches in southwestern Connecticut.

Waterbury-based Webster Financial Corp., the holding company for Webster Bank N.A., which has branches across New England, reported a consolidated net loss of $31.6 million for the quarter ended June 30, as an $85 million provision for loan losses and a 10 percent increase in non-performing assets offset a $480 million growth in deposits.

Stamford student lender The Student Loan Corp., majority owned by Citibank, reported net income of $24.9 million in the second quarter, down 41 percent compared to $42 million in the same period last year, a slide the company largely attributed to tightening interest margins in the quarter.

Credit unions will still have to dig into their own coffers to replenish their collective deposit insurance fund, drained as a result of a couple corporate credit unions\’ actions – but now instead of paying it off immediately, they have seven years to do so.


New York’s Hudson Valley Bank is set to continue its aggressive expansion into Connecticut after receiving approval from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency to open a new branch in Stratford later this year.

For the nation’s largest banks, the second quarter and beyond may be all about credit.

On June 17, the U.S. Treasury Department released a comprehensive plan to reform the financial services regulatory system in the United States. The plan, Financial Regulatory Reform: A New Foundation, identifies causes of the current crises in the financial markets and proposes changes to the current system of financial services regulation in the United States in an effort to prevent similar events in the future.