North Carolina

Little Bank in Kinston, N.C., has agreed to buy its first bank. It will pay $30.7 million, or $11.94 a share, for the $298 million-asset Union Banc in Oxford, N.C.

BNC Bancorp in High Point, N.C., has rebranded its banking unit to reflect its expansion beyond the Tarheel State. The $7.5 billion-asset company said in a press release Tuesday that Bank of North Carolina is now BNC Bank.

Square 1 Bank, a unit of PacWest Bancorp, has hired two financial services veterans to expand its banking services for venture capital and private-equity firms and named a new leader of that practice.

The Cincinnati bank is looking to middle-market lending in the Charlotte area to fuel future expansion, CEO Greg Carmichael says. The timing may be right, given disruption from M&A, as well as the Wells Fargo scandal fallout.

Customers of First Citizens Bank in Raleigh, N.C., have been unable to access their accounts online since the company upgraded its digital platform on Monday.

First Citizens BancShares reported a sharp decline in quarterly profit that largely reflected merger-related costs and the Raleigh, N.C., company's exit from loss-sharing agreements.

The company believes it is done making acquisitions in its home state. The next phase of growth will likely involve deals and strategic hiring in large urban markets across the Southeast.

BB&T in Winston-Salem, N.C., rode recent acquisitions to a record profit in the third quarter.

Strong growth in deposits and mobile users at Bank of America, together with questions tied to the phony account scandal at Wells Fargo, had B of A executives addressing whether their bank and others would be better off than ever by scaling back branches.

Bank of America's chief financial officer on Tuesday downplayed the odds of a Wells-Fargo-style phony-account scandal at B of A, contending that it does not use hard-charging sales tactics.