Virginia Community Capital held a mixer for local B-Corporations in Richmond, Virginia earlier this month. The gathering of socially-conscious businesses was held to mark crossing the threshold of 1,000 B Corps across 34 countries. "Everything we do has a social impact," said Virginia Community Capital President and CEO and CDBA Chair Jane Henderson. "All the companies here tonight, we could potentially help them grow and be successful and give back more to their communities. We've got capital to lend, we believe in what they're doing, and we're really here to promote them and grow this organization and have more B-Corps in Virginia."

The Federal Reserve downgraded its outlook for the U.S. economy this year but forged ahead with the phaseout of its signature stimulus program. The nation’s central bank lowered its forecast for growth this year to between 2.1 percent and 2.3 percent, down from its previous prediction of nearly 3 percent. Officials reiterated that they would likely keep interest rates at zero for a "considerable time" after they wrap up their bond purchases later this year. Yellen previously characterized the language as meaning about six months, putting the first rate hike roughly in the middle of next year. But in her session yesterday, she emphasized that the central bank is not locked into a date.

In an interview with Bloomberg Brief, Urban Partnership Bank CEO William Farrow lays out his vision for the bank's future and discusses regulation of community banks: "For community banks, there is a higher cost of tracking and achieving compliance and keeping up with the rules. The last time I looked, the bank had over 70 visits [from regulators since August 2010]... When we assumed the ShoreBank footprint, I started to focus on creating small branches, with the maximum being about 1,500 square feet... We are trying to change to more of a commercial bank structure because we want to create jobs... the retail aspect is a mission because a lot of employees of our customers don’t have banking relationships, and we want to bring them into the banking system."

More than a million Americans have been effectively blacklisted from big banks because they overdrew their accounts or bounced a check. Regulators say that the banks are using private databases intended to weed out serial fraudsters to screen out potential customers, swelling the ranks of the unbanked. Next week, New York’s attorney general will become the first government authority to take aim at how banks use the databases when they announce that Capital One has agreed to fundamentally change the way it uses the largest database, ChexSystems. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is also monitoring banks' use of the databases.