Sterling Financial Corp. in Spokane, Wash., returned to the black for the year as credit quality improved.

The Ithaca, N.Y., bank has been scouting for deals and said Thursday it has agreed to buy VIST Financial in southeastern Pennsylvania for $86 million in stock.

Green Dot said Thursday that it is working with the AARP Foundation to issue a MasterCard-branded prepaid card in mid-February.

UniRush said Thursday that it is eliminating a string of fees for its reloadable prepaid RushCard and also launching a new pricing plan for customers.

United Community Banks Inc. of Blairsville, Ga. is back in the black — again.

New Resource Bank in San Francisco said Thursday that it had raised $7.7 million through a private placement.

The $733 million-asset company said in a press release that Philip Brothman will not seek reelection as chairman of Evans or unit Evans Bank when shareholders meet in April.

The St. Louis company will restate almost two years' worth of earnings after finding an error tied to loss-sharing agreements for failed-bank deals.

MovenBank plans to be a mobile bank for the smartphone age. But perhaps more intriguing, it will use social media data to inform its credit decisions and to determine pricing.

John Koelmel touts quarterly profit in interview, but merger and integration costs weighed on the Buffalo bank — and more are on the way.

Suffolk Bancorp in Riverhead, N.Y., said late Wednesday that it has a new accounting firm.

A potential default by Greece would not constitute a "disaster" and Europe still is likely to "muddle through" a very complex set of issues to resolve its financial crisis, JPMorgan Chase & Co. Chief Executive Jamie Dimon said Thursday.

Astoria Financial Corp. in Lake Success, N.Y., said late Wednesday that its fourth-quarter profits fell 50% from a year earlier, to $11.8 million, because of decreases in average interest-earning assets.

Susquehanna Bancshares Inc. in Lititz, Pa., reported Wednesday that its fourth-quarter earnings nearly doubled from a year earlier, to $19.1 million, on improvements in areas such as lending, fee income and a reduction of problem assets.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. – MIT FCU, which serves the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said it has renewed its lease on a 16,573-square-foot office building at 700 Technology Square.

CAPE CHARLES, Va. – NMA FCU said it plans to open a branch office on the first floor of the Cape Charles Blue Hotel by March 1.

SAN ANTONIO – Security Service FCU opened a new 5,000-square-foot branch in New Braunfels, the credit union giant’s first location in the area.

Former Fannie Mae chief executive, Daniel Mudd, who was named last month in a mortgage-related Securities and Exchange Commission fraud suit, has officially resigned from the publicly traded investment manager Fortress Investment Group and its board, ending a leave of absence.

Mortgage loan application volume declined by 5% on a seasonally adjusted basis for the week that ended Jan. 20, as interest rates on some fixed-rate loans rebounded from their all-time lows, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association.

Fannie Mae's final multifamily mortgage-backed securities issuance numbers for 2011 are in and they reflect a nearly 50% increase from the previous year, according to an executive at the government-sponsored enterprise.