The overall pace of consolidation slowed this year, but the average deal value increased from 2015 as bigger banks continued to get back into mergers and acquisitions. Several of this year's sellers were banks that had been backed by private equity in search of growth or a post-crisis turnaround.

Had Wells Fargo simply complied with regulatory guidelines on multifactor authentication across all channels, there would have been substantially less fraud.

Castle Creek Capital has sold its entire stake in Heritage Commerce in San Jose, Calif.

First Midwest Bancorp in Itasca, Ill., has hired the former chief financial officer at Fulton Financial, about two weeks after he announced his resignation from the Lancaster, Pa., company.

Now that the OCC has proposed a limited-purpose bank charter for fintech companies, a host of innovative new banks will soon flood the market — or maybe not.

The National Credit Union Administration acted appropriately, within its legal authority, when issuing its member business lending rule.

Ginnie Mae has revised the wording of the acknowledgment agreements necessary to finance mortgage servicing rights. It sought to resolve a concern warehouse lenders had in the event issuers become troubled.

A former senior teller at Exchange National Bank & Trust in Atchison, Kan., has been sentenced to prison time and ordered to pay restitution after pleading guilty to an embezzlement scheme.

President-elect Donald Trump has threatened retaliatory tariffs on China if they cheat on their trading obligations. A good place to start would be China’s payment card market.

First Commonwealth Financial in Indiana, Pa., has hired a former Regions Financial executive to lead several of its consumer lending groups.

Scandal, business models gone awry, missing money and executive shake-ups — 2016 had it all. Here are the financial services executives or groups of them who took the heat and will be looking for better times in 2017.

Peapack-Gladstone Financial in Bedminster, N.J., has filed a shelf registration statement to sell as much as $100 million in securities.

Opes Advisors shows would-be borrowers how purchasing a house fits into their total financial picture, now and years into the future. Many of its loan officers are licensed investment advisors.

Liberty Financial Services in New Orleans said it will redeem more than 11,000 shares of preferred stock it issued as part of the Troubled Asset Relief Program after receiving an investment from BancorpSouth in Tupelo, Miss.

Flagstar Bancorp in Troy, Mich., said that the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency has terminated its 2012 consent order with its Flagstar Bank on Monday.

John Stumpf and Carrie Tolstedt were ardent evangelists of the bank's sales strategy and culture. Their refusal to move in a new direction left Wells Fargo with problems that will take a long time to fix.

City Holding in Charleston, W.Va., is looking to raise up to $55 million in a stock offering.

Citizens Financial Group in Providence, R.I., said Tuesday that it expects to start offering digital small-business loans in mid-2017.

Ameris Bancorp in Georgia wanted to buy a premium-finance business but settled for a joint venture, blessed by its regulators, after being flagged for insufficient Bank Secrecy Act compliance.

Female entrepreneurs who apply for loans online and are evaluated by an automated system get a bigger share of online credits than they do traditional in-person bank loans. It could be a sign that automated credit decisions are fairer.