Want another reason to hope for interest rates to fall? Look no further than the tidal wave of commercial real estate (CRE) debt set to mature in the next few years. The numbers are huge and rate cuts might be one of the few ways some lenders have to escape a potentially calamitous situation. Bankers have been eyeing the so-called “maturity wall” with trepidation since rates started to rise. In total, about $2.8 trillion of CRE loans are set to mature by 2028, according to data supplied by the research firm Trepp, and banks hold just over half of it,…

In today’s technology-driven world, it’s no secret that scale matters. Perhaps nowhere is that more the case than with the processing- and marketing-intensive credit card business, where the numbers can be mind-boggling, and the biggest players keep getting bigger.  According to data from the Nilson Report, the eight largest issuers accounted for 80% of the $5.82 trillion in general purpose card purchases made in 2023 and 76% of U.S. industry outstandings at the end of the year.  JPMorgan Chase & Co. was the 600-pound gorilla of the space, with 21.4% of total purchase volume in 2023 ($1.25 trillion) and year-end…