South Valley Bancorp would more than double its sale price if it collects in full on a pool of suspect business loans before its takeover by Washington Federal is completed.

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Ally Financial Inc. (GMA.XX) said Monday its broker-dealer subsidiary will exit from mortgage-related activities as it looks to further eliminate noncore businesses.

Look ma, no hands (or mag stripe): Sporting eyewear with a built-in camera, a cashier or flea market vendor could accept a payment card simply by looking at it.

Seoul's Hana Financial Group no longer plans to acquire a 51% ownership stake in Saehan Bancorp of Los Angeles.

JPMorgan Chase (JPM) has donated $5.5 million to the University of Colorado Denver Business School to open a center for the study of commodities.

The OCC's approval clears First Niagara to close its deal for 195 branches in New York and Connecticut by May 18, CEO John Koelmel says.

Mortgage companies added 3,000 full-time employees to their payrolls in February, according to Friday's jobs report.

Participants in the Small Business Lending Fund increased small business lending by $1.3 billion in the fourth quarter, a 37% increase from the previous quarter, the Treasury Department said Monday.

Jefferson’s deal for Carrollton Bancorp is part of the PE-backed company’s plan to expand to $1 billion of assets, which CEO Cashen says is a must in today’s world.

Small mortgage banking companies benefited from a 32% jump in loan production from the third quarter to the fourth quarter, but profitability per loan was crimped by a slight drop in pricing in the secondary mortgage market, according to a new report by the Mortgage Bankers Association.

Two years after the federal government largely took over the student loan market, the remaining banks in the industry are preparing for another shakeup.

Toronto Dominion Bank wants to become the third-largest retail bank in NYC, while U.S. competitors are pulling back.

Ally Financial Inc., the government-owned auto lender, is making a $134 million dividend payment to the Treasury Department.

The spread between consumer rates and secondary market rates – a proxy for the profitability of originations – spiked to new highs in the first quarter.

The SEC says Anthony Nocella, Franklin Bank Corp.'s former CEO, and J. Russell McCann, its former CFO, fraudulently concealed the deterioration of the bank's loan portfolio and inflated its earnings before the company declared bankruptcy in 2008.

The Lansing, Mich., company has turned its inventory of community banks into a garage sale to bring in capital to support its struggling banks. With fewer banks left to sell, industry observers say Capitol has few options to keep capital levels above regulatory minimums for failure.

Editor's Note, July 25, 2012: This and other BankThink opinion columns written by Joel Sucher bearing this note, published between October 2011 and June 2012, mentioned the law firm of Stephen J. Baum, Litton Loan Servicing, or both. The columns should have disclosed that Baum's firm, working on behalf of Litton, had attempted to foreclose on the writer's property in 2009. American Banker's editors were unaware of this history at the time the columns were published.

DNB First in Downington, Pa., is acquiring a branch in nearby Boothwyn from Capital Bank of Rockville. Md.