First Financial Corp. in Terre Haute, Ind., is bulking up in Illinois with a deal to acquire Freestar Bank in Pontiac for $47 million.

Big bank critic Arianna Huffington had some unusually kind words for bankers at The 25 Most Powerful Women in Banking gala, but she said in an interview that there's still an "enormous amount that needs to be fixed" in the industry.

PLEASANTON, Calif. – Patelco CU added a new location in San Mateo.

BRUNSWICK, Me. – Navy FCU plans to close its lone Maine branch at the Navy Commissary and exchange.

WICHITA FALLS, Texas – Texoma Community CU hopes to inspire people to think pink by painting its sign pink at the Southwest Parkway branch.

2011 Women in Banking Keynote Arianna Huffington: "I owe an enormous amount to bankers."

2011 Women in Banking Keynote Beth Mooney: "We didn't lead with our differences."

2011 Women in Banking Keynote Beth Mooney: "We didn't lead with our differences."

2011 Women in Banking Keynote Heidi Miller: "I was a beneficiary of affirmative action."

2011 Women in Banking Keynote Heidi Miller: "I was a beneficiary of affirmative action."

2011 Women in Banking: Young Women's Leadership Scholarship Winners

Losses on home equity and other second mortgages may cost the four biggest U.S. banks $22.6 billion more than budgeted, with Wells Fargo & Co. most at risk, according to Glenn Schorr, an analyst with Nomura Holdings Inc.

Attorneys for the Texas county that includes Houston will seek permission Oct. 11 to hire outside lawyers to sue Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems Inc. over $100 million or more in unpaid mortgage-filing fees.

Two failures late Friday - one in Minnesota and one in Missouri = cost the Deposit Insurance Fund nearly $190 million.

Chaotic stock markets are complicating bank deals like Brookline's planned purchase of Bancorp Rhode Island. Brookline extended for the second time the deadline for the seller's shareholders to decide how they will be paid.

MasterCard Inc. is equipping Subway restaurants with technology that will enable the sandwich chain to accept payments through smartphones.

Congress recently heard conflicting testimony from three professors and one think tank fellow on a simple, straightforward question: Should there be a guarantee for mortgage securities in the future?

HSBC has appointed Irene Dorner, American Banker magazine's fourth most-powerful woman in banking, president and chief executive of HSBC USA.