Nathan DiCamillo

Here’s a community bank that is growing goodwill with local residents — literally. The staff at an Independence Bank branch in Hopkins County, Ky., tends an acre of farmland before and after work, with their crops going to help feed the needy.

The designation allows the $1 billion credit union to process SBA loans within 36 hours and to approve them without sending them to the agency first.

Safety first, counseling and maybe massages later. For most banks, the goal after a robbery is to restore normalcy. But how they go about it varies, from requiring employees to return to the scene to enlisting colleagues who have had a similar experience to provide support.

The conversion, scheduled for Q1 2018, will allow the CUSO to expand into the Tampa area.

The service, which carries a $9.95 monthly fee, recently completed a private beta test, with users managing more than $1 billion on the platform.

Heather Tuason is now chief product officer of StreetShares, an online lending and investing platform.

The payments industry has come a long way with how it treats loyalty and rewards. Here are some of the more creative offerings to come about this year.

The California lender, which specializes in trade finance, reported strong growth in commercial and other lending categories last quarter, and it urged the Trump administration to seek fair trade deals with China.

LendKey, whose software helps financial institutions make student, auto and home improvement loans, closed a Series C round led by a fund whose investors include more than a dozen banks.

The Pennsylvania bank's mortgage performance contributed to stronger loan growth, fee income and profits.