First Guaranty in Hammond Louisiana agreed to a consent order with federal and state regulators that's aimed at improving its credit quality.

HBT Financial in Bloomington, Illinois, has agreed to acquire Tri-County Financial Group in a deal valued $204.6 million.

USAA sued Fifth Third last month over four patents. The bank had already asked the patent office to cancel two of them.

The federal agency has denied the Dutch neobank's de novo bank charter application, citing "significant supervisory and compliance concerns."

Gateway Bank, which has narrowed its losses under new CEO Mukhtar Ali, hired a team of residential-construction lenders to speed its return to profitability.

The CFPB is still without a permanent director, KeyBank has completed its acquisition of Clearwater UK, Flagstar's private bank has launched an insurance agency and a suite of discretionary managed investment portfolios, and more in this week's banking news roundup.

Return-to-office mandates in the financial services world are based more on senior executives' "gut" feelings than on real data. In many cases their main effect is to add stress to the lives of front-line employees.

Augustus National Bank, which is working to fulfill the conditions for its de novo OCC charter, was approved for federal deposit insurance by the FDIC.

A report released this week by Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., shines a light on what is required of banks when high-net-worth clients engage in suspicious activity.

The latest consumer conditions study from the American Financial Services Association paints a less-than-rosy picture of how lenders expect the second half of the year to play out.

Supporters of mutual banks are lining up behind a proposed regulatory overhaul. The Fed's plan would make it easier for depositor-owned banks to raise capital.

Neither company would say how many patents the deal covers, whether either paid the other or whether USAA pressed its claims first.

Banco Santander's pending acquisition of Webster Financial got approval from the Federal Reserve Board about five months after the deal was first announced.

Consumers increasingly trust third-party AI tools nearly as much as their own bank, according to recent survey data. Industry experts lay out what banks need to do now to keep their edge.

A portfolio review initiated by BCB Bancorp's new CEO, Tom O'Brien, led to a spike in nonaccrual loans at the Bayonne, New Jersey-based bank.

The investment is expected to bring a 40% increase to Chase Home Lending's mortgage capacity, with the addition of 850 new advisors, the company said.

A recipe of no securities, mostly adjustable-rate loans and a cheap rural deposit base made the Texas bank the top performer in the $2 billion-$10 billion asset class.

"Increase Bank is the bank I needed at Stripe," CEO Darragh Buckley said as he announced the rebrand of a community bank he acquired last year.

JPMorganChase has recently teamed up with Ohio State, and SoFi has partnered with Notre Dame, in big-money deals that weren't allowed before this year.

Coastal Financial in Everett, Washington, is reshuffling its management team and abandoning an expansion plan. On Thursday, the bank reported a nearly $69 million credit expense sparked by a fintech partner's deteriorating financial condition.