Dean Anason

It's easy for banks to spin their wheels on local reinvestment, financial education and other efforts to help underserved communities. To make outreach programs successful, bank executives need to carefully vet nonprofit and other partners, listen to their employees on the front lines and reflect on their own reasons for getting into banking.

Citigroup said Tuesday that it plans to exit consumer businesses in 12 countries.

Beneficial Mutual Bancorp in Philadelphia, which dates back to 1853, is the latest old-school mutual thrift to announce plans for a second-step conversion to a fully public stockholder company.

The news that JPMorgan Chase chief Jamie Dimon has curable throat cancer should remind all banks that medical issues involving executives are something many companies will have to face. Here are four things every bank should remember in planning for such events.

Ex-Im Fight Heats Up on Hill; Good and Bad in New Housing Data

Stifel Financial (SF) has agreed to buy a Legg Mason wealth management unit, the two companies announced Wednesday.

A Frosty Economy; AIG's Cuts; Banks' Lost Clout

Regional bank executives keep trying to deflect calls for more cost cutting as they seek new revenue sources, and one of them -- BB&T's Kelly King -- seems to be losing his patience with such demands.

The economy is showing signs of life. But executives at PNC, Huntington and BB&T remain cautious about investing in new businesses, products or markets that raise expenses or hurt efficiency ratios.

Receiving Wide Coverage ...Wow, what a morning. Scan is still trying to decide whether today's confluence of events out of Washington and Wall Street is poetically just, ironic or just plain spooky. A flood of headlines centered on finalization of the Volcker Rule, a congressional budget deal and the fifth anniversary of Bernard Madoff's arrest. That's a big agenda, but, for brave readers and those who had to get their kids to school early, let's have at the most important matters:

A branch is no longer just a "full-service thing" but a wide range of service points that include bare-bones express locations and the smartphone in your pocket, Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan said this week.

Their approaches differ, but one thing many bankers agree on is that growth depends largely on how well they cross-sell wealth management products to borrowers and depositors.

Receiving Wide Coverage ...You had to figure that with an election night, and lots of other distractions such as the continued buzz over the SAC Capital plea deal, commercial banks would get a break for at least one 24-hour news cycle.

Some regional banks reported strong loan growth in the third quarter and are upbeat about the fourth. Others had a weak summer and expect this quarter to be the same. All claim their lending practices are sound and that rivals are taking risks. It doesn't add up.

Big bank executives in New York need to visit the heartland and get in touch with Main Street to cure lingering public resentment, St. Louis Fed President James Bullard said.

Receiving Wide Coverage ...Jamie's Cryin': If you are most CEOs, you know it's going to be a tough day when you wake up to read lots of stories about your company that quote people "familiar with the matter." For Jamie Dimon, it is just another day in August. ... The Federal Housing Finance Agency wants $6 billion in connection with its lawsuit alleging that JPMorgan sold Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac $33 billion of tainted mortgage-backed securities ahead of the financial meltdown, several of the major dailies reported. JPM is fighting the offer but could still end up paying billions of dollars, the Financial Times says.

Maria Mitchell, a 19th century U.S. astronomer with historic ties to Pacific National Bank of Nantucket, was commemorated with a special doodle on google.com Thursday.

Dunno about you (and by "you" I mean, say, the chief risk officer of Bank of Kokomo who'll also have to cover the teller window today on the eve of a holiday) but email traffic to my inbox slumped off last night — a sure sign people may be starting vacation early. However, the news kept churning yesterday and overnight, and if you are reading this you thirst for news, so here we go ...

Two American Banker staffers who cover mergers and acquisitions have a confession to make. We sometimes get so enmeshed in the arcane numbers behind bank deals that we overlook what really makes them tick: the human element.

The proposed sale of Atlantic Coast Financial in Jacksonville, Fla., did not sail with investors. Shareholders rejected Bond Street Holdings' $13.1 million, or $5-per-share, offer on Tuesday.