Growth strategies

Hometown Financial, which completed three acquisitions this year, is considering branch openings for a push into the city.

The Raleigh-based credit union hit its latest milestone just three years after reaching 200,000 members.

The Minnesota Credit Union Network worked with two brewers to create and sell a strawberry milkshake cream ale in an effort to boost the industry's profile and raise money for financial literacy.

The New York company will enter Suffolk County after it buys Empire Bancorp.

The National Credit Union Administration has unveiled a proposal to address a federal judge's concerns that its 2016 field-of-membership overhaul could discourage lending in low-income areas.

The 2018 Statistical Report from the World Council of Credit Unions shows the industry continuing to grow, though 80% of global assets are held in North America.

Arkansas Democrat-Gazette FCU, originally chartered to serve newspaper employees, has received regulatory approval to merge into a larger institution.

Midsize players like BankUnited, BOK and Fulton Financial plan to rely on selective M&A, catering to niches overlooked by big banks, aggressive recruitment of commercial lenders and other strategies to stimulate revenue growth.

The Tennessee company has agreed to buy First Advantage, which specializes in financing manufactured housing purchases.

Centreville Bank will pay $116 million in cash for PB Bancorp.

The company agreed to buy Steuben Trust for $107 million.

The $32 million merger will create a bank with nearly $1 billion in assets.

A majority of banks globally may not be economically viable because their returns on equity aren’t keeping pace with costs, the consultancy said in its annual review of the industry released this week.

The credit card lender responded to the closing of Toys R Us stores last year by issuing Synchrony-branded cards to the retailer's customers. Now it's testing a general-purpose card with a wider array of clients.

Santander Consumer is planning to attract online deposits via a national platform that could rival Goldman Sachs’s Marcus; HSBC is now in retrenchment mode after aiming for growth.

Count Citizens Financial’s Bruce Van Saun among those who think interest rate cuts could halt by mid-2020. The key, he says, is to focus on delivering services customers are willing to pay fees for and to skillfully reprice deposits until then.

Tom Lopp will succeed Gary Judd at the end of November.

The companies say they're working hard to complete their deal this year — including spending millions on retention payments and other items — but there's no guarantee how quickly regulators will make their decisions.

The Gainesville, Fla.-based institution has a new TIP charter granting membership privileges throughout Florida, but no new branches are currently planned.

The Pittsburgh company’s “branch lite” approach to retail and middle-market banking in new markets will break even sooner than expected and has had a noticeable impact on loans and deposits.