Patriot National Bancorp in Stamford, Conn., will recognize a one-time gain of $16.6 million in third quarter profits, due to the partial reversal of its valuation allowance for deferred tax assets.

Regional banks are doing their best to hold down expenses, compete for quality loans and generate more fee income, but until the Federal Reserve raises interest rates, their quarterly profits will remain sluggish, bankers and analysts say.

Pennant Management, which handles assets for community banks and other clients, disclosed that it could be holding up to $179 million in fake USDA-insured loans. Industry observers said the firm's failure to take certain precautions, along with weaknesses in the secondary market for USDA loans, invited fraud.

A community bank in Massachusetts has opened a branch that's a microcosm of forward-looking trends in retail bank design. Emphasis on the "micro" part.

Legal and Debt Recovery, an Orange, Calif.-based collection agency, and the agency's legal counsel, D. Scott Carruthers, have been issued a cease-and-desist order by the Idaho Department of Finance.

Westamerica in San Rafael, Calif., reported lower quarterly earnings largely because of a narrower net interest margin.

AmericanWest Bank in Spokane, Wash., has agreed to buy the $468 million-asset Bank of Sacramento in California for $60 million in cash.

TD Bank NA, which lost electronic files containing information for as many as 260,000 customers in 2012, agreed to pay $850,000 to settle a multistate probe into the security breach, New York's attorney general said.

Bank of the Ozarks in Little Rock, Ark., reported a rise in third-quarter profits as net interest income reached a record high and provisions for bad loans fell.

Kirit Patel, the owner of a company that purported to be a collection agency, has pleaded guilty to four counts of mail fraud and wire fraud after allegedly bilking consumers out of more than $5 million.

Diebold has released a new series of ATMs that include security protections.

Commerce Bancshares in Kansas City, Mo., reported stable third-quarter earnings as margin compression offset loan growth.

Unless regulators coordinate their efforts to reform banks' home lending, mortgage servicing and remittance businesses, American consumers will continue to lose access to affordable financial services.

PNC Financial Services Group in Pittsburgh reported higher third-quarter profit on an increase in fee income and loan growth.

KeyCorp in Cleveland reported lower third-quarter earnings as revenue slumped and its net interest margin fell.

Citigroup Inc. co-president Manuel Medina-Mora has been telling colleagues that he is close to retiring as the Mexican unit he helped build fights fraud allegations, according to a person familiar with his thinking.

Bank of America, which agreed to a record $16.7 billion settlement of government mortgage probes in August, posted a surprise third-quarter profit as investment-banking revenue rose.

Lake City Bank in Warsaw, Ind., is planning to add three Indianapolis branch locations in roughly the next 15 months.

Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo kicked off third-quarter earnings by reporting mixed results. For every good thing, there was something to offset it: stronger lending, but also higher expenses, for example. That could continue for awhile.

MetaBank in Souix Falls, S.D., has agreed to buy the operations of AFS/IBEX Financial Services, an insurance premium finance company in Dallas.