BURLINGTON, N.C. – Proponent FCU, chartered to serve employees of Hoffman-LaRoche’s New Jersey headquarters, has opened a 16,000 square-foot branch and administrative offices to serve the pharmaceutical giant’s employees here.

APPLETON, Wis. – Community First CU has opened a branch at Jefferson Elementary School.

ANDERSON, Ind. – Independent FCU will unveil its new headquarters today with a grand opening ribbon-cutting ceremony and will offer donations to Madison County charities, prizes and giveaways for the public, live radio remote coverage and building tours.

DUBUQUE, Iowa – Dupaco Community CU yesterday said it has reached an agreement to purchase a branch from East Dubuque Savings Bank, a local institution.

MURRAY, Utah – Utah Power CU has hired local contractor Big-D Construction to build a new home office, a two-story, 18,000-square-foot building.

The Federal Reserve Board gave the $200 million-asset Horizon Bank a narrow time frame to raise capital or find a buyer.

The painful rescue of the financial industry may yield a surprise gift: a new securities market that could become a lucrative source of capital for banks.

Bank regulators issued 1,143 formal enforcement actions against banks and their holding companies last year, a new record and more than double the 2008 tally.

TIB Financial Corp. of Naples, Fla., said its fourth-quarter loss widened to $45.1 million from $13.2 million a year earlier.

Susquehanna Bancshares Inc. of Lititz, Pa., announced it is raising as much as $395 million in capital and said it could use some of the money to repay the Treasury Department.

With so many banks ailing, use of the Texas ratio, a quick way of assessing capital adequacy, has returned to the forefront of bank analysis.

LifeLock Inc. agreed today to pay $11 million to the Federal Trade Commission and $1 million to a group of 35 state attorneys general to settle charges that the company used false claims to promote its identity theft protection services.

An estimated 764 different collection agencies and creditors are named in 899 consumer statute lawsuits filed nationwide in February, according to data from U.S. District Court complaint dockets. The numbers are up from a month earlier when 712 agencies and creditors were named in 851 lawsuits, according to research firm WebRecon LLC, which compiles the monthly data.

A growing number of institutions worried about the Office of Thrift Supervision's future may switch to a national bank charter, putting even greater pressure on the agency's budget.

LAHAINA, Hawaii – Valley Isle Community FCU is celebrating its new home in the Lahaina Business Park with a traditional Hawaiian blessing ceremony and a live radio broadcast this Saturday.

The most important idea raised at the bankers meeting was not to limit the $30 billion to community banks, since many face significant short-term financial problems (300 to 500 are expected to fail this year). Instead, make available up to half the $30 billion to the roughly 800 community development financial institutions, or CDFIs, nationwide that combine small-business expertise and a readily available pipeline of small-business borrowers.

The credit union industry may have its best chance in more than a decade to persuade Congress to double the amount of business lending it can do.

A group of Tribune Co. creditors sued the banks behind the publisher's 2007 leveraged buyout, claiming the $8 billion in loans they arranged for the deal doomed the company to bankruptcy.

RICHLAND, Wash. – Gesa CU said it has completed construction of a 5,600-square-foot environmentally friendly branch in nearby Kennewick.

RICHMOND, Va. – Virginia CU, which has been adding new branches, has purchased the former Hops Restaurant building in Henrico County.