Financial institutions with a long-term strategic interest in the credit card business should reap the benefits of the existing safe harbor and buy while it lasts. Those who don't should take advantage of the current environment and sell.

Banco Santander SA, Spain's largest bank, filed to raise as much as $3 billion in a U.S. initial public offering of its Mexican unit.

ING Group is pressing prospective buyers of operations in Southeast Asia and Hong Kong to also acquire part of its Japanese unit, three people with knowledge of the matter said.

Shareholders of Wall Street banks who agree with former Citigroup CEO Sanford "Sandy" Weill that the companies should be broken up face an obstacle: bondholders.

The focus on bank mergers and acquisitions has been tilted toward the Southeast and is now moving toward the west. Here is a break down of the first-half year activity by region.

Bank of Commerce Holdings in Redding, Calif., is selling its stake in its namesake mortgage company three years after becoming its co-owner.

Codorus Valley Bancorp (CVLY) is warning investors about higher credit costs a month before its third quarter will end.

The acquisition will more than double the assets at C1 Bank, which has been an active acquirer in Florida since receiving backing by a group Brazilian investors.

Ray Davis, the CEO of Umpqua Holdings, bounces back from his failed attempt to buy American Perspective in central California with a $25 million agreement for Circle Bank in Northern California.

Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CM) has agreed to buy Griffis & Small, an energy advisory firm in Houston.

Leslie Lunak, an M&A expert who has been at BankUnited since 2010, will be promoted to chief financial officer early next year.

Four months after the Portland, Ore., company lost a deal in the state to a higher bidder, Umpqua has agreed to buy Circle Bancorp in Novato, Calif., for about $25million.

The top five mortgage servicers offered $10.6 billion in consumer relief as part of the $25 billion national mortgage settlement, the independent monitor said in a preliminary report Wednesday.

It may be hard for banks like Toronto-Dominion and New York Community to resist trying to outbid M&T for Hudson City, which agree to sell itself for a relatively low-priced offer.

Bank of Nova Scotia agreed to buy ING Bank of Canada for $3.16 billion, adding more than $30 billion in retail deposits to its balance sheet and 1.8 million customers.

Few banks with trust-preferred debt would fall below the Basel III capital minimum without the securities. Many are using the phase-out as an opportunity to retire the high-cost funding.

The new employment agreement with veteran banker John Kanas comes just weeks after reports surfaced that the Florida company was again weighing offers to sell.

Cordia Bancorp will invest $3 million to consolidate control of Bank of Virginia in a move Jack Zoeller, Cordia's CEO, says will position the company to make acquisitions and raise capital.

First Community Financial Partners in Joliet, Ill., will combine its four banks under a single charter to increase the availability of products at each one.

Morgan Stanley and Citigroup agreed to delay setting a valuation for their brokerage joint-venture as they wrangle over the sale of a 14% stake.