Student lending

Prodigy Finance, a London-based graduate student lender, gets $240 million in new funding round; Bitcoin Cash value soars.

MPOWER Financing announced a deal Tuesday with Bank of Lake Mills in Wisconsin that will enable the Washington, D.C.-based company to lend to students in all 50 states.

The marketplace lender's application for an industrial bank charter is under fire from small banks and progressives, who say it could violate the barrier between banking and commerce and shut out middle-class and lower-income consumers.

The old record was set just before the Great Recession, and what may be most remarkable is that it took nearly nine years to reach a new milestone.

Navient and Nelnet, the two largest student loan servicers, avoided downgrades on some $18 billion of bonds by extending their maturities. Getting the required consents from investors would normally take ages, but recent innovations speeded the process.