The private banking arm of KeyCorp in Cleveland has established a Delaware trust company and hired two veterans from competitors to help run it.

EverBank, which has been carefully growing its mortgage business the past few years, has agreed to purchase the warehouse division of MetLife, the company confirmed to National Mortgage News.

Horizon Bancorp in Michigan City, Ind., has agreed to buy Heartland Bancshares Inc. of Franklin, Ind., in an all-stock deal valued at $14 million.

Social networking giant Facebook is already a half-billion dollar payment company. For banks, that presents threats and opportunities.

Liberty Bell Bank has been fighting battles with a former chairman for more than five years. Last month, the bank filed to form a bank holding company, just months after the activist investor was rounded up by U.S. marshals for allegedly defrauding elderly people around Philadelphia.

CapStar Bank in Nashville announced late Thursday that it has struck a deal to acquire the $169 million American Security Bank & Trust Co. in Hendersonville, Tenn., for a mix of cash and stock.

Hudson City Bancorp Inc. said its chairman and chief executive is stepping aside temporarily to attend to an unexpected medical issue, leaving its operating chief to assume those duties for the time being.

In addition to the national mortgage servicing settlement, Nevada has reached a side deal with Bank of America, state Attorney General Catherine Masto announced late Thursday.

Multiple state and federal officials put the banks on notice that the $25 billion mortgage servicing settlement is just the first step in pursuing civil litigation and criminal prosecutions in connection with misdeeds before, during and after the financial crisis.

President Obama's January 4th recess appointment of Richard Cordray as head of the director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has threatened to set-off a contentious legal challenge in an already polarized Congress.

Sen. Robert Menendez wants to let lenders share in future home price increases if they agree to reduce the mortgage principal owed by homeowners today.

Depending on who you talked to, the massive mortgage servicer settlement announced Thursday was either a "criminal sell out" or a much-needed shot in the arm for the housing market. In reality, however, it appeared to be neither.

Evans Bancorp Inc. in Angola, N.Y., has reported that fourth-quarter income more than doubled from a year ago, to $1.3 million, due to higher net interest income and a lower provision for loan and lease losses.

How is Wells Fargo & Co.'s $15 billion deal for Wachovia Corp. three years ago working out for the San Francisco company? Really, really well, Wells Fargo Chief Financial Officer Timothy Sloan said Thursday.

Bank of America customers in upstate New York were issued new debit and credit cards after a third-party breach possibly compromised their information.

VIST Financial Corp. in Wyomissing, Pa., said after markets closed Thursday that it lost $24.6 million in the fourth quarter after it wrote down $25 million of goodwill in connection with its pending sale to Tompkins Financial Corp. of Ithaca, N.Y.

Private-equity firms complain about the government dragging its feet in approving their bank deals, but the investors in ECB Bancorp may have found a silver lining.

Most of the costs were either previously reserved for or will be incurred over several years. Among the five banks that settled (Wells Fargo, Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Allied Financial and Citigroup), only Citi had to take a charge.

Even two years ago, when the first U.S. financial institution committed to issuing secure chip cards, vendors said no one was lined up to follow. But times have quickly changed.

The government-owned Ally Financial has issued an offering book on Residential Capital Corp. in the hope that it can finally unload its money-losing mortgage division and take the rest of the company public, according to investment bankers familiar with the matter.