In the 2000s, the growing ubiquity of bank branches was one of America’s great retailing puzzles. Online banking was on the rise and the industry was consolidating, but branches kept popping up seemingly everywhere — if you define “everywhere” as the reasonably affluent parts of cities and suburbs. That ended with the financial crisis. The number of bank branches in ...

Emmanuel Macron and Mario Draghi signed a treaty at the Quirinale palace in Rome to get France and Italy working together better. That’s good news for Europe. It’s also tinder for populists. How their countries — both founding members of the European Union — pull off cooperation will determine how much nearer the continent’s dream of “ever closer union” gets ...

Bloomberg Black Friday deals ranked among the least generous in years as more US consumers headed back to stores on one of the busiest shopping days of the year. Retailers appear to have the “lowest level of clearance goods in five years or more,” Oliver Chen, an analyst at Cowen & Co, said in a report. According to Salesforce.com Inc, ...