U.S. Bancorp has created a separate in-house appraisal unit overseen by a senior risk officer, breaking from the way most banks handle appraisals of residential properties.

Bancorp Bank of Wilmington, Del., said Monday that it has agreed to issue prepaid card programs for Swift Prepaid Solutions.

UnionBanCal is taking the unusual step of marking up the value of Pacific Capital's loan portfolio as part of its $1.5 billion deal for the Santa Barbara, Calif., lender.

Madison National Bancorp Inc. said on Monday that Daniel L. Murphy, the co-chairman and chief executive of the Melville, N.Y., company, has died.

Union Bank of California is buying bank holding company Pacific Capital, in one of the largest bank deals in years.

Large financial institutions dominate most of the nation's biggest cities. There are still some metropolitan areas where a community bank has the most deposits, often by wide margins. Here are some notable examples, based on June 30 data from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.

In what would be its largest acquisition in more 15 years, UnionBanCal Corp. in San Francisco is buying Pacific Capital Corp. in Santa Barbara, Calif., for about $1.5 billion in cash.

MADISON, Wis. – University of Wisconsin CU is working with the city to get approval on a new branch at a building formerly used to house a Brennan’s Market.

Longtime community bank investor Eric Hovde has traded Washington D.C. for Wisconsin in the hopes of taking up residence in the nation's capitol.

For a second time in three weeks, regulators have shuttered a bank that others were unwilling to acquire.

WASHINGTON — The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency has approved Capital One Financial Corp.'s acquisition of HSBC Bank USA's credit card portfolio.

PNC Financial Services Group Inc. intends to open as many 60 branches and will substantially increase its sales force this year as it looks to strengthen its presence in the Southeast and take advantage of market disruption to add new clients throughout its 15-state footprint.

Freddie Mac reported a 16% increase in short sales last year and wants to boost the use of this foreclosure alternative by increasing the fees it pays participating servicers.

Mortgage companies cut 3,200 full-time employees from their payrolls in January, according to government figures released Friday morning.

Freddie Mac posted net "comprehensive" earnings $1.5 billion in the fourth quarter, but must turn around and pay the U.S. Treasury a $1.7 billion dividend, which means it ultimately lost money during the period.

Prices fell and the pace of dealmaking slowed last month, but March started off strong with another big deal in Texas.

Richard Hendrix, the president and CEO of FBR & Co., says that earnings and price expectations must "reset" for capital to come back to banks. In a wide-ranging Q&A, he discussed bankers' reluctant to tap capital markets and his belief that it could take time before a meaningful level of IPOs take place.

To create a mobile banking offering that can compete with banks or the likes of Google, the prepaid card marketer Green Dot is purchasing the location-based deals company Loopt.

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency has ended a formal agreement with City National Bank of Florida.

Fifth Third Bancorp of Cincinnati has laid off an unspecified number of employees as part of an ongoing effort to control expenses.