AmericanWest Bank in Spokane, Wash., has agreed to buy eight southern California branches from First PacTrust Bancorp in Irvine, Calif.

Meritrust CU plans to build a vault-style safe room in its newest branch in Manhattan, Kan,. to protect against tornadoes like the one that struck Moore, Okla.

Enrollment is up at the ABA Stonier Graduate School of Banking as banks return to financial health and executives once again invest in their employees' development.

Kids master fundamentals of banking at Montecito Bank's financial literacy summer program, Fun in the Sun.

Though many servicers will be exempt from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's upcoming exams, its new rules on how to handle troubled homeowners will impact them all.

Small-business owners who invite their children into the experience, even in small ways, can impart important lessons that stick for life.

Small-business finance firm Kabbage turns to social media metrics to size up funding applicants.

Small-business customer want advice they can trust. KeyBank has a strategy for delivering it.

Small-business loan volume is on the rise at big banks.

Karen Mills, the outgoing head of the Small Business Administration, gets high marks from bankers for cutting red tape, revamping little-used programs, improving outreach, and, most important, convincing lawmakers to raise caps so that banks could make larger loans.

WASHINGTON — Wisconsin suffered its first bank failure in over two years late Friday as regulators closed a small institution in Kenosha and sold off most of its operations.

The Federal Reserve Board hit Naugatuck Valley with a memorandum of understanding on May 21, the $526 million-asset company said late Friday.

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First California Bank in Westlake Village, Calif., and an affiliated prepaid card provider must pay fines of over $1.7 million for how they used a reloadable card product to deliver federal benefits payments, the FDIC said Friday.

Eagle Bancorp (EGBN) in Bethesda, Md., claims that proxy advisory firm ISS made mathematical errors when it urged investors to vote against compensation for CEO Ron Paul and other officers.

The Michigan company is set to raise up to $100 million if the right acquisition is available. Analysts say in an erratic M&A market, it is better to be ready to raise capital than to raise it and wait.

Benjamin K. Olson, who was deputy assistant director in the CFPB's office of regulations, has joined the Washington office of BuckleySandler LLP as counsel, the law firm said this week.

The pace of expansion decelerated in April as bankers complained about competition for commercial loans and a slackening of consumer loan demand.

Freddie says its new "low-activity" fee will offset the cost of monitoring the loans it buys, but avoiding it could be a challenge for lenders in rural markets.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. has taken enforcement actions against eight banks and freed 12 others from prior orders, according to a series of orders released Friday.