With the $7.5 billion acquisition, the Minneapolis bank bolstered its customer base in the nation's most populous state by more than 1 million. Earnings accretion from the combination could offset slower loan growth this year.

The loan-growth projections are for Columbia Banking System itself, before the Tacoma, Washington, bank officially merges with Umpqua Holdings. The $5 billion deal is scheduled to close Feb. 28.

Unrelenting pressure to improve efficiency could keep bank merger activity steady or even accelerate it despite several economic and regulatory factors except for one — credit quality, say two veteran Piper Sandler dealmakers.

CEO Bill Rogers stopped short of confirming or denying speculation that the bank is seeking a buyer for part of the unit.

The $104 million-asset Finex Credit Union in East Hartford plans to partner with the $52 million-asset First Connecticut Credit Union in Wallingford.

The Canadian banking giant also announced that Nandita Bakhshi, the San Francisco bank's CEO, will join the board of directors of its U.S. holding company and serve as a special advisor on integration.

Bank of Montreal has received approval from the the Federal Reserve to acquire San Francisco-based Bank of the West, a combination that will create the 15th-largest U.S. lender.

JPMorgan Chase Chief Executive Jamie Dimon called the firm's botched acquisition of the college financial-planning website Frank "a huge mistake" and vowed to share takeaways at a later date.

Anu Aiyengar, who was named co-head of global M&A in 2020, will be sole head of global mergers and acquisitions at JPMorgan Chase, making her the only woman to lead that franchise at a major Wall Street bank.

A lawsuit filed by the bank against the founder of a tech venture risks renewing concerns about JPMorgan's rapid deployment of shareholder cash in recent years.

JPMorgan Chase is claiming the founder of Frank, a college financial-planning site the bank acquired in 2021, defrauded it by vastly inflating the number of customers the company had.

Voyager Digital Ltd. won court approval to sell its crypto platform to Binance.US for $20 million as part of Voyager's plan to liquidate in bankruptcy.

The green light from the FDIC marks the end of the acquisition's final regulatory hurdle. The banks expect the deal to close by the end of February.

4Front Credit Union in Traverse City has agreed to buy Old Mission Bank in Sault Sainte Marie. There were 16 such acquisitions announced in 2022.

The deal would create a $3.2 billion-asset bank with branches in four states, including an expanded presence in Texas.

Credit Suisse Group is close to an agreement to buy Michael Klein's advisory boutique after several rounds of tense negotiations, according to people briefed on the talks.

The Tupelo, Mississippi-based institution hasn't made a bank deal since 2018, but it has acquired two asset-based lenders in the past 10 months.

The Securities and Exchange Commission is pushing back on Binance.US's plan to buy the bankrupt crypto lender Voyager Digital, a deal valued at about $1 billion, according to a bankruptcy court filing.

Land of Lincoln Credit Union in Decatur has agreed to acquire Colchester State Bank in Colchester.

This year saw far more abandoned deals than the previous one. The list includes State Street's abandoned purchase of Brown Brothers Harriman Investor Services and FVCBancorp's failed merger with Blue Ridge Bankshares.