These 25 leaders are using their influence to make banking — and their communities — better.

Among the impressive women you'll want to keep an eye on moving forward are: two new female CEOs at top-40 banks; Mary Mack, who'll now oversee consumer banking at embattled Wells Fargo; and community bank CEOs Mary Anny Scully and Karen Glenn.

Women are arguably even more outnumbered in the upper ranks of finance than in banking, and the executives on this list stand out not only for their performance but for their work to help create a path to parity.

Arkansas regulators have closed the $66.3 million-asset Allied Bank in Mulberry, the fifth institution to fail this year.

The subprime auto lender continues to struggle to get its arms around accounting issues that date to 2013.

First Bancorp in Southern Pines, N.C., has terminated loss-share agreements tied to a pair of failed-bank acquisitions.

Only a dozen banks still owe the government Troubled Asset Relief Program money, and an unspecified number of others including Reliance Bancshares in St. Louis owe investors who bought their Tarp balances. But Reliance has made problem loans vanish and has a credit line in hand to help retire its $62 million Tarp-related debt.

Randolph Bancorp raised $57 million in a mutual-to-stock conversion and is using the proceeds to fund acquisitions — it closed its first-ever deal in July — and dramatically improve its digital capabilities.

Financial institutions must act on the "urgent and fundamental" need to transform the correspondent banking system, the consulting firm said in an annual report on global payments.

Bankers can bolster investor confidence by showing they are taking a disciplined approach to M&A. That involves thorough due diligence, strong rationales for deals and the ability to step away from the table.

The $8.3 billion-asset CVB said Thursday that it would pay $57.5 million in cash and stock for the $416 million-asset parent of Valley Business Bank.

Johnny Burris, an investment advisor, has been embroiled in a four-year dispute with the bank, his former employer, which he says pressured him to push his clients into the bank's own or favored investment products. JPMorgan, and now Finra, accuse Burris of causing the (three-figure) client loss and neglecting to make his superiors aware of the problem.

Lisa McDougald, the deputy general counsel at the $222 billion-asset BB&T in Winston-Salem, N.C., and Leon Holschbach, chief executive at Midland States Bancorp, a $3 billion-asset company in Effingham, Ill., were appointed to the board this summer.

Fannie Mae employees will be working this weekend to update the agency's automated underwriting machine to process trended data for the first time.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau filed a lawsuit this week against a Van Nuys, Calif., credit repair company for deceptively marketing its services and charging consumers illegal fees.

Six global banks have formed a standards-setting group for using distributed ledger technology developed by Ripple.

Home BancShares co-founder and Chairman John Allison is shrinking his ownership stake in the Conway, Ark., company for estate-planning purposes.

Financial services IT teams must think like cybercriminals and develop an offensive approach to security at a time when threats are growing in frequency and sophistication.

Starting Friday, all U.S. banks should be able to receive same-day payments. But by itself, same-day speed may not be enough to meet the demands of an increasingly digital world.

Farmers Capital Bank in Frankfort, Ky., has announced a plan to restructure its balance sheet.