California

Suncrest Bank in Visalia, Calif., has agreed to buy Security First Bank in Fresno for $18 million in cash and stock.

Plenty of banks have ended their federal loss-share deals early, but despite the incentives to wind them down, plenty more still have these crisis-era arrangements in place. It may be due to varying deadlines, mistakes calculating loan values or worries that they still might need the coverage for home equity lines.

Opus Bank in Irvine, Calif., has started a public finance division and hired an executive from Umpqua Bank in Oregon to run it.

Royal Bank of Canada beat analysts' estimates for the fiscal third quarter as its City National purchase in the U.S. bolstered wealth management and capital markets earnings surged. Canada's largest lender raised its dividend 2.5% to 83 cents a share.

The latest lending figures show just how prodigious banks' shift from construction to C&I loans has been since the crisis. Yet a hard look at C&I credits, especially their loss rates, raises questions about whether they are safer.

The Bancorp in Wilmington, Del., disclosed the identities of directors nominated to its board by two investor groups.

The longtime chairman and chief executive of Cathay General Bancorp will relinquish his CEO title this fall and the company's bank president is set to succeed him.

The $58 million-asset company said in a press release Monday that Stephen Taylor, chairman and chief executive of Taylor Asset Management in Chicago, is leading a $6 million investment in its Neighborhood National Bank, effectively doubling its capital.

A federal judge in California approved a $2.4 million settlement in a class- action lawsuit against Social Finance, a San Francisco-based online lender.

Pacific City Financial in Los Angeles has raised $15.3 million in a secondary stock offering.

The $7.5 billion-asset company said in a press release Thursday that Curtis Glovier had become chairman and chief executive of Pensco Trust Co.

Four years after the first states legalized marijuana, most bankers still want nothing to do with it.

Problem technology credits drove down quarterly profits at Opus Bank in Irvine, Calif., which said it will pull back on tech lending even though that had become one of its most important niches.

Second-quarter earnings at Cathay General Bancorp in Los Angeles fell 22.9% to $34.8 million from a year earlier on a triple-digit spike in chargeoffs.

Banc of California's second-quarter profits soared on stronger lending and credit quality. The $10.2 billion-asset company increased net income 66% from a year earlier to $26.5 million, it said in a news release Thursday.

One of the nation’s biggest banks and the so-called “everything store” have joined forces to extend loan discounts to students.

Executives at several minority-owned community banks nationwide, including OneUnited Bank in Boston and Carver Federal Savings Bank in New York, say they have received a windfall of deposits in recent weeks, coinciding with the introduction of the Black Money Matters Project.

Profit improved at both BBCN Bancorp and Wilshire Bancorp in the second quarter, about two weeks ahead of the closing date for the Los Angeles companies' merger.

Bank of America, the second-biggest U.S. bank by assets, said second-quarter profit fell 21% as it took an accounting charge and posted a decline in wealth management revenue.

PacWest Bancorp in Los Angeles reported lower quarterly profit as higher expenses offset gains from fees and loan growth.