The $902 million-asset company said Friday that it plans to shut down First Financial Diversified, which provides escrow services to First Financial and other customers.

Consolidation is needed to help the economy because there are too many banks, argues the author, a longtime bank investor. Many parties benefit from deals, and any return for the seller is better than producing poor results or being seized by regulators.

Bryn Mawr Bank (BMTC) in Pennsylvania and MidCoast Community Bancorp in Wilmington, Del., have terminated plans to merge.

Debt buyer Encore Capital Group Inc. reported gross collections from the portfolio purchasing and recovery business for the second quarter ended June 30 totaled $278.4 million, a 16% increase over the $240.6 million in the year-ago period.

Triumph Bancshares in Germantown, Tenn., has agreed to buy two mortgage businesses from Merchants & Planters Bancshares in Bolivar, Tenn.

As a good bank in a hard-hit state, Gulfstream Bancshares in Stuart, Fla., focused on getting in the best shape to be above reproach to potential buyers. The strategy worked, and its agreement to sell itself to CenterState could embolden others.

TowneBank bought a minority stake in a security firm to help protect its commercial customers and boost revenue.

Buyers, sellers and shareholders rarely profit from bank acquisitions, the author argues. There are too many things that have to go right in the pricing and integration, and there is too much that can go wrong.

Carolina Alliance Bank (CRLN) in Spartanburg, S.C., has agreed to buy Forest Commercial Bank in Asheville, N.C.

When regulators threatened a crackdown on the sale of nonperforming consumer loans to collection firms, and JPMorgan Chase (JPM) and Wells Fargo (WFC) promptly halted such sales, the industry's rapid unloading of bad assets seemed to be in jeopardy.

First M&F (FMFC) in Kosciusko, Miss., revised its second-quarter results, turning previously reported earnings into a loss.

Technologies like webcasts, email, instant messages and cloud sharing are making it harder to maintain confidentiality and attorney-client privilege in deal negotiations.

Bankers are pressing ahead with sales of nonperforming commercial loans, and debt collectors are buying them up, even though regulatory pressure has slowed or halted the unloading of bad consumer loans.

Nice Systems (NICE), a maker of contact center software, has agreed to buy Causata, a provider of customer behavior analytics software. Ideally, the two technologies combined could provide a real-time picture of what a customer has been up to the moment he calls a company's call center.

Banc of California (BANC) earned $4.4 million, or 36 cents a share, in the second quarter, compared with a $739,000 loss a year earlier. The results topped the expectations of analysts polled by Bloomberg by 13 cents.

CoBiz Financial (COBZ) in Denver plans to retire $21 million in debt. The $2.7 billion-asset company is scheduled to retire the unsecured notes on Aug. 19, it said in a regulatory filing Tuesday.

Cardtronics said this morning it has continued its acquisitions spree with a deal to acquire Cardpoint Limited, an operator of 7,100 ATMs in the U.K. and Germany for $153 million cash.

Farmers & Merchants State Bank in Archbold, Ohio, has agreed to buy a branch from Croghan Colonial Bank in Fremont, Ohio.

Sussex Bancorp (SSBX) in Franklin, N.J., has completed a $7.2 million capital raise.

Carlile Bancshares plans to merge and rename its two Colorado banking units.