When brainstorming over the winter about potential mascots for a children's savings program, First Arkansas Bank and Trust's marketing team considered the usual suspects: superheroes, Barney the dinosaur, cartoon characters and the like.

Heritage Commerce Corp. in San Jose said it no longer intends to buy two branches from Wells Fargo & Co.

Hanmi Financial Corp. in Los Angeles has withdrawn its application to participate in the Treasury Department's Troubled Asset Relief Program after conferring with its regulators.

Some well-known Texas bankers say that they plan to start bidding on failed institutions now that they have a shelf charter from the Office of the Comptroller of Currency.

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – Campus USA Credit Union has started construction on a new 95,000-square-foot headquarters and adjacent 4,500-square-foot branch office in nearby Jonesville.

A year after announcing plans to pair a specialty finance business with a Chicago banking company, Castle Creek Capital LLC is giving up on the deal.

The future-of-branching debate — "brick-and-mortar is dead!" "no, expansion is near!" — is back on, but the two sides have more in common than they might think.

ATLANTA — If a CU determines it can't extend branch hours, it should consider turning to shared branching to boost convenience, according to one person.

CLOQUET, Minn. — To close the convenience gap between credit unions and banks that have branches on every corner, some credit union aren't seeking to add bricks, but instead add hours.

OKLAHOMA CITY — It's high noon for Frontier State Bank.

Carolina Trust Bank in Lincolntown, N.C., has a deal to buy Carolina Commerce Bank in Gastonia, N.C., for $5.5 million in stock.

Colony Capital LLC, a firm owned by the billionaire Thomas Barrack, and Stephen Ross' Related Cos. may seek to buy the assets of Corus Bankshares Inc., the Chicago lender facing a regulatory deadline to boost capital, people with knowledge of the matter said.

Recently, a bank has been running a national ad campaign that has strengthened my distaste of negative advertising.

Valley National Bancorp in Wayne, N.J., became the first banking company to make a partial repayment of Treasury Department funds, slicing the government's investment by a quarter Wednesday.

MIDWEST

First Financial Bancorp is to offer $90 million of stock this week, $10 million less than the Ohio bank had expected when it priced its offering two weeks ago.

Temecula Valley Bancorp Inc. has gone from hanging on by a thread to getting a lifeline.

Silicon Valley Bank said Tuesday that it has teamed up with GW & Wade LLC to offer wealth and tax planning services.

After being jilted by two would-be buyers, Peoples Community Bancorp Inc. of West Chester, Ohio, now finds itself in a position to pick partners — at least for its branches.