Shareholders for Herald National Bank of New York have until Dec. 21 to decide how they want to get paid in the proposed merger with BankUnited Inc. of Miami Lakes, Fla.

Activist investor John W. Palmer appears to have won his bid for a seat on the board of the $1.2 billion-asset HF Financial Corp.

More investors in loans and other assets tied up in corporate bankruptcy fights have to file disclosures, but certain sensitive details about their holdings are no longer required.

The FDIC has served as the receiver on 90 banks so far this year, well below analysts' expectations. Still, observers say another 200 banks are at risk of failure over the next two years.

The Federal Reserve on Tuesday announced written agreements with two banking companies.

The Missouri Supreme Court has declined to hear the Missouri Attorney General's appeal of a decision to uphold a trial court’s dismissal of the attorney general’s lawsuit against Portfolio Recovery Associates.

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Cullen/Frost Bankers Inc. in San Antonio announced Monday that it has agreed to acquire the human resource consulting firm, Stone Partners Inc.

The Royal Bank of Scotland unit, as part of a larger effort to slim down, plans to put its 27 supermarket branches on Long Island up for sale soon, sources say.

Expect more debt exchanges and cash tender offers from banks in the coming months. The strategy is rational and the alternatives for generating equity are limited at best.

Piedmont Community Bank Holdings Inc. in Raleigh, N.C., wants to up its ownership stake in Crescent Financial Corp. of Cary, N.C., and is giving Crescent shareholders more time to mull its offer.

The heir to the Hyatt hotel fortune has ties to the industry, but the family's last banking venture didn't end so well.

PNC Financial Services Group Inc., of Pittsburgh, officially entered the Atlanta market over the weekend after closing a deal to acquire Flagstar Bancorp Inc.'s 27 branches there.

First Niagara's chief knows how to party, photos show. Lighter moment is part of serious effort at breaking the ice with new employees of a rapidly growing company, officials of the Buffalo bank say.

ING Group NV Monday announced plans to swap EUR5.8 billion ($7.8 billion) in subordinated debt for senior loans and cash, becoming the latest in a string of European banks to exchange their own debt at discounted values and use the gains to strengthen capital.

Republic Bancorp in Louisville, Ky., announced on Friday that it would soon stop making refund-anticipation loans as part of a settlement with the FDIC. Now it needs to find revenue to replace the $24.5 million the business has made this year.

The Buffalo company is scheduled to close on $1.1 billion of offerings over three days next week to pay for its increasingly problematic deal to buy 195 HSBC branches.

Keefe, Bruyette & Woods is advising investors to steer clear of most big banks' stocks in 2012 and invest instead in life insurers, credit card companies and smaller-cap regional banks.

Vengroff, Williams & Associates, one of the world's largest commercial collection agencies, has sold one of its "order-to-cash" divisions to Paris-based Capgemini, a global IT services and outsourcing company.

Looking to bulk up in affluent Orange County, California United Bank in Encino announced Friday that it is buying the $450 million-asset Premier Commercial Bancorp in Anaheim for $38.1 million in stock.