RBS Citizens Financial Group in Providence, R.I., has signed a referral agreement with brokerage Oppenheimer & Co., in a bid to boost its commercial lending to middle-market businesses.

A breakdown of M&A announcements for the week ended July 21.

The Milstein family's recent sale of Emigrant Bank's New York branches shows how banks can innovate when they don't answer to a wide shareholder base.

The Renton, Wash., company has spent more than $600,000 to fight an big outside investor, highlighting the cost of duking it out with irate shareholders.

ALEXANDRIA, Va. – Pentagon FCU announced this morning its Prudential PenFed Realty CUSO has acquired Prudential Professional Realty in Clarksville, Tenn., an independent franchise outside the Fort Campbell, Kentucky, military base, which has been rebranded as Prudential PenFed Realty.

Howard Bancorp in Ellicott City, Md., has raised $10.2 million through a public offering and private placement of common stock.

Bank sellers and buyers are seeing a steady pickup in business, including separate deals last week by Emigrant and WesBanco.

Debt buyer Portfolio Recovery Associates Inc. (PRA) on Monday named Owen James as CEO of Mackenzie Hall Holdings, succeeding Paul Mackenzie.

The California company received the FDIC's blessing to sell 11 loans covered by loss-sharing arrangements. Industry observers believe more sales could take place now that this deal has been cleared to take place.

The card-fee kerfuffle, CFPB vs. Cap One, a summer of scandals and earnings. As discussed by American Banker editors.

The deal with Apple Bank provides Emigrant with much-needed capital, though the private bank's lofty price expectations may have warded off other potential bidders, sources says.

AmericanWest in Spokane, Wash., announced Thursday it plans to acquire the $221 million-asset Inland Community Bank for $23.7 million, or 95% of its book value. It is AmericanWest's third acquisition in California in a year.

"The Daily Show" host took several sharp stabs at the growing Libor scandal on Wednesday night, equating the bankers that manipulated the interbank lending rate with the villains of a "Da Vinci Code"-type thriller.

Morgan Stanley reported a 50 percent drop in earnings that was bigger than analysts estimated as revenue from trading stocks and bonds declined the most among Wall Street banks.

BB&T's second-quarter earnings soared as the Winston-Salem, N.C., company reported strong improvement in lending, noninterest income and credit quality.

Orrstown Financial Services (ORRF) sold $28.6 million of nonperforming commercial loans to an unnamed outside investor.

Strong loan growth helped Wintrust Financial more than double its income in the second quarter to $25.6 million. It offset a surge in salaries and other employee-related expenses.

Capital One Financial Corp. (COF) said second-quarter profit fell 90 percent as an HSBC acquisition forced it to set aside loan-loss reserves.

James Rohr, the Pittsburgh bank's CEO, swears off new deals after putbacks from former National City mortgages, added costs in integrating RBC USA acquisition and other deal-related ills hurt PNC's quarterly bottom line.

Second-quarter results were predictably solid, but the earnings call was anything but dull as the CEO blasted the city of Los Angeles and its motives.