Alan Kline

An institutional investor at Broadway Financial (BYFC) has agreed to swap its preferred shares for common stock to help the Los Angeles company attract more capital.

Most marketing executives at Wall Street firms believe that new regulations governing the financial services industry will go a long way toward helping banks, brokerage houses and investment banks improve their reputations.

The only chief financial officer in Associated Banc-Corp's history is stepping down later this year after 39 years with the Green Bay, Wis., Company.

A Kansas City, Mo., asset management firm that until last summer was partially owned by JPMorgan Chase & Co. quietly won a large breach-of-contract judgment last year against the New York bank, according to court documents unsealed this week.

Unsuccessful in its bid to raise capital and recently ordered by regulators to bolster its loan-loss allowance, Fidelity Bank in Dearborn, Mich., is now critically undercapitalized and has told investors that is in danger of failing.

BancTrust Financial Group Inc. (BTFG) in Mobile, Ala., has put itself up for sale after its bid to raise capital from two private-equity groups fell through.

A Michigan bank that recently endured three straight years of losing money and a Seattle thrift that was once on the verge of failure are among 22 banks and thrifts that the investment bank Sandler O'Neill & Partners LP predicts will be added to the Russell 3000 stock index this year.

Rurban Financial Corp. in Defiance, Ohio, has revised its 2011 earnings after the abrupt bankruptcy of a key client wound up wiping out much of the company's fourth-quarter profits.

Trading revenues at commercial banks fell sharply in the fourth quarter as concerns about sovereign debt and economic uncertainty in Europe kept many banks and their clients on the sidelines.

Bridge Capital Holdings Inc. in San Jose is opening a third loan office on the East Coast to lend to emerging technology companies.

Continuing in its quest to reinvent itself as a specialty-finance lender, TCF Financial Corp. of Wayzata, Minn., has launched a new division that will specialize in asset-based and cash-flow lending to smaller middle-market companies across the U.S.

The Ohio treasurer's office intends to fire Bank of New York Mellon Corp. and State Street Corp. as the custodians of state-run pension funds because it suspects the banks have been overcharging two of the funds on foreign-currency transactions.

In what would be the first acquisition in its 50-year history, Peoples State Bank in Wausau, Wis., is planning to buy the $108 million-asset Marathon State Bank in nearby Marathon City for $5.6 million.

Coming off its fourth-straight money-losing year, United Bank of Philadelphia is under orders from state and federal regulators to clean up its loan portfolio, improve its capital ratios and submit to regulators a detailed plan for returning to profitability.

Senate Democrats plan to introduce to an amendment to a new jobs bill that would extend the charter of the Export-Import Bank for another four years and raise the bank's lending limit by 40%, to $140 billion.

A trade group representing bank boards says directors have become "overwhelmed" by rules and regulations and is urging banking agencies and Congress to quickly take steps to ease their burden.

Despite strong asset and deposit growth, First PacTrust Bancorp Inc. swung to a loss in the fourth quarter as the Irvine, Calif., company sharply increased its loan-loss provision to reflect both a surge in total loans and an increase in impaired loans.

Zions Bancorporation and Regions Financial Corp. were the biggest winners among bank stocks Wednesday after the Federal Reserve gave the two regional companies the go-ahead to finally repay the the Troubled Asset Relief Program.

Two small Massachusetts mutual thrifts are planning to join forces in hopes of gaining the scale to better compete against larger banks.

Several regional banks that were also stress-tested by the Federal Reserve but whose results were not made public announced that they have passed their tests. Some, including Comerica, Huntington and Discover, plan to free up trapped capital.