After spending much of 2002 and 2003 consolidating its 14 charters into five and reorganizing back-office operations, First Financial Bancorp in Hamilton, Ohio, learned that cost-cutting alone does not improve performance.

The National Credit Union Administration last week approved a pilot program that allows CUNA Mutual Group to buy credit union loans, then package them into funds and sell shares in the funds to individual credit unions.

Joe McArthur has resigned as chief executive of SouthFirst Bancshares Inc. of Sylacauga, Ala., after less than four years on the job.

While at least six communities in the Chicago area are trying to keep new bank branches out, others are trying to get banks to notice them.

In its 16 months in business, Fidelity and Trust Bank of Bethesda, Md., has nearly quadrupled its assets, to $206 million, thanks largely to growth in its mortgage banking subsidiary.

Should a state be permitted to deposit funds in a bank in which the governor holds stock?

Mark W. Kehoe, an analyst with Merrill Lynch & Co. Inc. in New York, initiated coverage last week for 14 small and midsize banking companies, mostly in California and the Midwest.

Commercial Federal Corp. has started offering a money transfer service and an educational video geared to the Hispanic market.

Susquehanna Bancshares Inc. is moving the headquarters of one of its subsidiaries to a city that has not had its own bank in more than two decades: Camden, N.J.

A California consumer group is urging banks and thrifts to stop financing payday lenders and instead develop products and services that meet the needs of low-income consumers.

North Fork Bancorp. Inc. of Melville, N.Y., has added itself to a growing list of banks that have cut ties to money service businesses.

The chairman, chief executive, and president of Leesport Financial Corp. in Wyomissing, Pa., resigned unexpectedly Wednesday.

MIDWEST

East West Bancorp in San Marino, Calif., has landed a celebrity endorser — the Olympic figure skating champion Michelle Kwan.

Sterling Bancorp Inc. of New York said Wednesday that it would restate results for the past three years to correct errors in accounting for employee benefit expenses and to reflect the impact of a lawsuit it settled in February.

Community Trust Bancorp Inc. of Pikeville, Ky., is buying the $102 million-asset Heritage Community Bank and Trust of Danville, Ky., for $12.2 million in cash.

Two years ago Jeff Woodard of First Farmers State Bank in Minier, Ill., was one of the first bankers to pass a new test to become an official "Certified Community Lender."

The dollar's slide should come as no surprise. For years we have been operating with record budget and balance of payments deficits and counting on foreigners to finance them by buying American securities.

Israel's biggest banking company has called its investment in the 4-year-old Signature Bank one of its most successful foreign ventures ever, but now the New York bank is growing so fast that it is straining Bank Hapoalim's resources.