Executives at Wayne Savings Bancshares and Main Street Financial grew progressively more comfortable with the idea of a deal during six months of talks, Wayne Savings CEO James VanSickle says.

Attorney General William Tong is asking state lawmakers to grant his office more power to investigate consumer complaints after problems marred M&T Bank's integration with People's United Financial.

The Maryland bank is merging with Linkbancorp in a nearly $168 million deal that would create a $3 billion-asset company. The transaction comes just months after OceanFirst Financial and Partners nixed their merger plan, citing regulatory delays.

The arrangement is designed to benefit commercial clients of both banks that operate on multiple continents. The companies reached the arrangement as part of the recent sale of Bank of the West.

Buckeye State Bancshares near Columbus said it would buy cross-state rival Rockhold Bancshares. Only six such deals were announced in January, making it the slowest first month of a year for M&A since the financial crisis.

After months of speculation, Truist Financial has agreed to sell 20% of its insurance brokerage subsidiary to the private-equity firm Stone Point Capital for $1.95 billion. The deal was touted as a way to provide capital for expansion and increase earnings over time.

The five-year, $50 billion agreement with community groups includes a pledge to open 25 branches in marginalized communities. TD is seeking regulatory approval for its acquisition of Memphis, Tennessee-based First Horizon.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., specifically called out acting Comptroller of the Currency Michael Hsu, saying that he "needs to learn how to say no to anticompetitive bank mergers."

Acquiring First Miami Bancorp would give the Greenville, South Carolina-based buyer three branches and nearly $900 million of deposits in the Southeast's biggest banking market.

In a speech on the central bank's regulatory agenda for the year, Federal Reserve Board Gov. Michelle Bowman said the merger-and-acquisition review process could benefit from added transparency.

As the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency rethinks its bank merger framework, the standard metric for determining a bank's deposit concentration in a merger review is increasingly irrelevant, officials say.

The two banks are now targeting May 27, three months later than their previous goal. The transaction, which would create a top-six U.S. bank by asset size, was originally expected to be completed last fall.

The California Reinvestment Coalition is one of the groups asking the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. to withhold its approval unless substantial conditions are imposed. The merger would create a $29 billion-asset bank with locations in nine states.

Goldman Sachs Group raised $5.2 billion for a private equity fund that will buy early-stage companies that are typically small in size, a sign of confidence in an industry that's confronting strong headwinds.

After decades in public markets, the Rothschild dynasty — one of the most storied names in banking — has decided its flagship bank is best in private hands.

Executives cited uncertainty created by surging interest rates, heightened regulatory scrutiny and the potential for a recession.

Grupo Mexico is close to lining up financing to back a more than $7 billion bid for Citigroup's Mexican retail bank Banamex, according to people familiar with the talks.

LevelField CEO Gene Grant says its strategy for merging with Burling Bank is super-conservative, despite an intention to serve the digital-asset community. "We've taken everything out of the business plan" that might give regulators pause, he says.

First Central Credit Union in Waco, Texas, agreed to purchase the branch and various assets from the bank, which is refocusing on its Harris and Tyler County markets.

A senior Commodity Futures Trading Commission official says the agency needs the power to approve or reject an unregulated company's acquisition of a derivatives exchange.