Alan Kline

Two Massachusetts thrifts that are planning to merge next quarter have decided on a new name for the combined company.

Prosperity Banchares’ deal to buy East Texas Financial Services is on hold after another bank holding company that owns a stake in the $212 million-asset East Texas filed a lawsuit to block the sale.

Just weeks after Capital One Financial (COF) said it was cutting 500 assistant manager jobs at its branches, FirstMerit (FMER) in Akron, Ohio, announced this week that it would eliminate all assistant branch manager jobs as part of a broad cost-cutting initiative.

Activist investor Joseph Stilwell is not winning much outside support in his bid to force changes at First Financial Northwest (FFNW) in Renton, Wash.

A month after expanding into Connecticut with its acquisition of a Hartford bank, Berkshire Hills Bancorp (BHLB) in Pittsfield, Mass., has added one of the state's most famous citizens to its board of directors.

Central Bank in Stillwater, Minn., is buying another distressed bank. It has a deal to buy the struggling Bank of Naples in Florida.

Jamie Dimon may no longer be President Obama's favorite banker, but the president is still apparently a fan of Dimon's bank.

First Federal Savings Bank in Elizabethtown, Ky., is planning to sell four more of its branches as part of its ongoing effort to beef up its capital levels.

One drawback with most envelope-free automated teller machines is that checks and cash have to be deposited separately, but that could soon change for customers of Fifth Third Bank (FITB).

The Japanese parent of Union Bank in San Francisco announced Tuesday that the bank's chief executive, Masashi Oka, has taken on the additional title of CEO for the Americas.

Less than a month after taking over a failed Maryland bank, Sonabank in McLean, Va., has unloaded the bulk of the problem loans it inherited in the deal.

Grand Bankshares in West Palm Beach, Fla., has been ordered by the Federal Reserve Board to serve as a source of strength for its struggling bank subsidiary.

Bradley S. Everly, the chief financial officer at the ailing Orrstown Financial Services in Shippensburg, Pa., has resigned after 14 years on the job.

Naugatuck Valley Financial in Connecticut swung to a loss in the quarter that ended March 31 following its discovery that it had been underpaying interest on certain customers’ certificate-of-deposit accounts.

StellarOne (STEL) in Charlottesville, Va., is planning to eliminate about 4% of its workforce, or 34 full-time jobs, as part of an overall cost-cutting effort that it says would save the company up to $2.4 million a year.

Two proxy advisory firms are once again urging shareholders at JPMorgan Chase (JPM) to name an independent director as its board chairman.

Continuing its rapid expansion in mortgage banking, Cardinal Financial (CFNL) in McLean, Va., announced Monday that its home lending subsidiary, George Mason Mortgage, has opened an office in the Baltimore suburbs.

The investment group Castine Capital Management has been sharply reducing its ownership stake in First California Financial Group (FCAL) even as it has been pressuring the company to sell itself.

Park Sterling Corporation in Charlotte, N.C., announced Monday that it is buying Citizens South Bank in Gastonia, N.C., in a deal that would instantly double its size.

After putting its initial public offering plans on ice, Customers Bancorp in Wyomissing, Pa., has placed $270 million of its investment portfolio on the auction block.