First BanCorp on Monday said it rejected a takeover offer from Doral Financial Corp. last week in favor of a deal with the Treasury Department to bolster its balance sheet by raising capital.

The Federal Trade Commission announced Monday it has banned a deceptive advertising operation from the debt-relief business under a $28.2 million judgment settlement.

Internal Revenue Service agents and local law enforcement raided collection agency Maxwell, Turner & Associates Inc.'s office in Monrovia, Calif. on Friday and arrested two suspects for allegedly scamming local businesses out of millions of dollars in a telemarketing scheme.

VIENNA, Va. – Navy Fed plans to add another new branch today–its 22nd in the past two months–at nearby Colonial Heights, Va., to serve military personnel at Fort Lee.

UNIVERSAL CITY, Texas – Fast-growing Randolph-Brooks FCU plans to open seven new branches in the next two years.

SAN ANTONIO, Texas – Generations Community CU has agreed to sell its 70-year-old office building, the city’s former train station, to VIA Metropolitan Transit, which plans to build a new bus depot out of the historic structure.

Credit unions are facing the same lending challenges as banking companies, setting a pace to have their first full-year decline in 30 years, according to the latest data from the Credit Union National Association.

Gouverneur Bancorp Inc. in New York said Friday that net income rose 28.8% in fiscal 2010. The $147 million-asset company earned $1.6 million in the year that ended Sept. 30, or 74 cents a share, compared with $1.3 million, or 56 cents a share, in the previous fiscal year. Total assets rose 2.2%, to $147 million.

First BanCorp in San Juan, Puerto Rico, had cut the size of a planned common stock offering after securing a concession from the Treasury Department.

The Federal Reserve Board has entered into written agreements with four community banks and their holding companies.

Community banks are poised to revisit in 2011 many of the troubled loans they worked hard to restructure this year.

The Federal Trade Commission charged three debt-relief operations with making unsubstantiated claims to lure consumers nationwide into paying thousands of dollars in upfront fees, but failing to reduce credit card debts as promised, the agency announced Thursday.

Risk is a four-letter word in the banking world these days. “Don’t take any,” is the prudent answer for most financial institutions.

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People's United Financial Inc. in Bridgeport, Conn., has completed its purchases of LSB Corp. and Smithtown Bancorp Inc.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. has decided that four banks started by Capitol Bancorp Ltd. should not bear financial responsibility for the failure of a Florida bank.

The $129.5 million-asset company said in a Wednesday press release that Sandra H. Stephens, who has been the CEO at SouthFirst and its bank for five years, will resign Jan. 2 to "spend more time with her family."

Once-secret documents released by the Federal Reserve Board Wednesday revealed that U.S. Central was a major beneficiary of the Fed's emergency Term Auction Facility, just as the corporate credit union giant was teetering.

The failures of banks in Southern California have left a fragmented market that is fertile ground for growth, says Gregory A. Mitchell, the president and CEO of First PacTrust.

Re: "FHLB System's Rationale Erodes as Advances Dwindle" Nov. 29. This article and the online survey on the relevance of the Federal Home Loan banks did not tell the whole story.