New York

Signature Bank reported Tuesday that fourth-quarter earnings rose more than 60%, capping what the New York company said was its best year since its inception in 2001.

First Niagara Financial Group Inc.'s acquisition of a western Pennsylvania branch network from PNC Financial Services Group Inc. is working out better than it had expected.

The $499 million-asset company in Elmira, N.Y., reported Tuesday that it earned $4.5 million in 2009, up 50% from a year earlier. The company said the record earnings outpaced its projections for an expansion in the Finger Lakes market in 2007.

President Obama is due to meet today with 11 chief executives of community banks, following up on a meeting with the heads of larger institutions last week.

The National Credit Union Administration last week approved the second new credit union charter this year, for East Side Development Alliance Federal Credit Union in Queens, N.Y.

First Niagara Financial Group will lend up to $50 million as part of a recapitalization plan that will make Harleysville National Corp. and its bank subsidiary well-capitalized.

Alliance in Syracuse, N.Y., and Hancock in Gulfport, Miss., reported starkly different outcomes for their offensive stock offerings Friday.

Alliance in Syracuse, N.Y., and Hancock in Gulfport, Miss., reported starkly different outcomes for their offensive stock offerings Friday.

In reporting third-quarter earnings of $6.9 million, Hudson Valley Holding in Yonkers, N.Y., said a $90 million common stock offering it has in the works was prompted partly by regulators.

Bankers and consultants alike report a quiet and continuing migration of seasoned talent away from the nation's major banks and into the calmer offices of smaller regional lenders.

Profits at Hudson Valley Holding Corp. in Yonkers, N.Y., plummeted 96% from a year earlier, to $300,000.

First Pittsburgh. Now Philadelphia. And First Niagara Financial Group Inc. says there's more to come. The Lockport, N.Y., company announced Monday that it had agreed to buy the struggling Harleysville National Corp. for $237 million in stock, or $5.50 a share. By itself, the deal would add $5.6 billion in assets and 83 branches in demographically attractive counties around Philadelphia to the $11.6 billion-asset First Niagara. Combined with a deal announced in April for 57 former National City Corp. branches in the western part of the Keystone State, the Harleysville National acquisition would increase First Niagara's asset size by 87% and double its branch count.