Executives also say funding pressures have begun to ease, though high interest rates and deposit costs remain a leading worry, according to new surveys.

Quaint Oak Bancorp sold its majority stake in an equipment lender less than two years after the partnership helped drive record profits at the Southampton-based company.

Branch office deposit data is among the most confidential information at a bank, especially those with many branches. Why have regulators made this sensitive competitive data public for banks and thrifts annually for over 50 years but not for credit unions?

The Charleston-based company agreed to pay $267 million to acquire Piedmont Bank in Peachtree Corners, Georgia. It's United's 34th deal, but the first since 2021.

Truist Financial completes the sale of its remaining stake in Truist Insurance Holdings; City National Bank has hired Rick Bechtel as executive vice president and head of mortgage and residential lending; Associated Bank names Chun Schiros as its first chief analytics officer; and more in the weekly banking news roundup.

American Heritage Federal Credit Union in Philadelphia plans to acquire three branches and $105 million of deposits from Linkbancorp. The deal is part of a growing number of transactions involving credit unions buying whole banks or portions of their branch networks.

Depositors are still flocking to online-only banking platforms offered by companies such as Ally, Capital One and Discover. But overall customer satisfaction took a "statistically significant" drop, according to a new J.D. Power report.

Executives of Allegiant, Breeze and Spirit complained to the heads of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and Department of Transportation that the relationships between big banks and big airlines are anticompetitive. Consumer advocates also questioned whether large airlines are delivering on promised rewards and if consumers are racking up debt to accrue miles and points.

After a California woman spent more than a decade obtaining reparations for Nazi plundering of her family's belongings, the money disappeared from her bank account. Her saga highlights a gap in fraud cases between what consumers expect from their banks and what those banks are in a position to deliver.

Consumer debt aggregators such as Method, Payitoff, Spinwheel and Tally are partnering with financial institutions to embed solutions that aggregate account information and devise ways to optimize repayment — including with low-interest offers from the bank itself.

Bank stocks are up this year as interest rates have leveled off and there are hopes that pressure on lenders' profits could moderate.

There is fundamental work involved in laying a modern data foundation and adopting a flexible, data-driven, cloud-based IT architecture suitable for AI implementation. Most banks aren't there yet.

As the Federal Housing Finance Agency considers revising Federal Home Loan bank membership standards, it should consider the benefits of scale that large member banks make possible.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's overdraft proposal would set fees at $14. With fee income under attack from many sides, bankers say they would have to further restrict credit.

Big national retailers will capture all the financial benefits from proposed reductions in swipe fees, while consumers will be left with fewer benefits programs and less secure transactions.

A set of panels discussing minority depository institutions and digitization found that cost is a significant challenge to minority depository institutions, especially in the core processing space.

The Federal Reserve, Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and Office of the Comptroller of the Currency issued a 30-page guidebook on managing affiliate risks. The report builds on formal guidance issued last year.

In talks with OCC officials, "it became obvious that we would not gain near-term approval given their recent experience with multifamily and CRE positions," FirstSun CEO Neal Arnold says. The companies announced other revisions to their deal, too.

Former Silicon Valley Bank exec Floyd Kessler joins Comerica as executive vice president and chief business control officer; Melissa Holding succeeds Michael Robinson as head of wealth management at Huntington; Goldman Sachs' Alexander Mayer is set to take on a senior position at JPMorgan Chase; and more in this week's banking news roundup.

Banks maintain lists of consulting firms that they trust to help troubled commercial borrowers to fix their businesses. These specialists say they're getting more calls, especially in areas such as multifamily and CRE, from business owners who need help.