Bob Mahoney, CEO of Belmont Savings, called Jack Barnes after People's United agreed to buy a Connecticut bank. The banks announced their own merger agreement five months later.

Chartway Federal Credit Union now has roughly $2.2 billion in assets and more than 190,000 members.

A smooth integration of Access National could allow John Asbury, CEO of Union Bankshares, to move a step closer to building a regional franchise that stretches from Baltimore to Hampton Roads.

New CEO John Turner hasn't fully laid out his vision for the future, but it clearly will involve hiring specialized lenders, balancing labor-saving AI with old-fashioned relationship building, and more streamlining.

James McLemore, one of our community bankers to watch in 2019, has more energy loans to purge and must exit the Small Business Lending fund and a BSA-related enforcement action.

HarborOne Bancorp — led by James Blake, one of our five community bankers to watch in 2019 — is a former credit union that recently made its first bank acquisition and has Boston and other markets in its sights.

Visa has a deal to acquire the London-based bank payments provider Earthport for 198 million pounds ($250.6 million U.S.), pending approval from Earthport's shareholders.

The pressure is on CEO Christopher Myers, one of our community bankers to watch, to make the most of CVB Financial's biggest acquisition to date.

Cadence has upped the exchange ratio by 10%, a move made necessary by the 40% decline in its stock price since the deal was announced in May.

On the surface, Ant Financial's reported discussions to acquire U.K.-based WorldFirst demonstrate a savvy business move to establish itself beyond the substantial market it controls in China. It also shows how far the Chinese payments giant is willing to go to resist the headwinds of U.S. policy.

While these five bankers made headlines this year, not all of them did so for good reasons.

China's Ant Financial, the Alibaba payments affiliate that operates Alipay, is reportedly in the advanced stages of talks to buy WorldFirst, an international payments provider based in London.

From making cybersecurity a priority to enhanced biometrics, here's what's on the industry's wish list this holiday season.

A big splash by Fifth Third, a bid by WSFS to reinvent itself and some bold long-distance expansions highlighted a year where deal activity held steady but premiums rose.

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency announced Friday that it has lifted restrictions relating to U.S. Bank's flawed efforts to prevent money laundering and Citi's deceptive marketing and billing practices.

The combination of CCF Holding, Heritage Bancorp. and Providence Bank will create a $1 billion-asset institution. Veteran bank investor Kenneth Lehman will be its chairman.

Selling $1.6 billion in mortgages, and paying off a similar amount of wholesale borrowings, will allow the company to expand its net interest margin in 2019.

Regulators have approved the proposed merger of Big Sky Federal Credit Union into Billings Federal Credit Union.

Old Dominion University Credit Union, which had two branches and about 3,000 members, has merged with Langley.

Stock Yards will remove a competitor in Louisville, Ky., and enter two markets outside of the city.