NexBank Capital Inc. in Dallas has raised roughly $20 million in fresh capital this year after recently completing a stock sale to group of investors.

The much-maligned practice forces long-delinquent borrowers who are "in limbo" to decide whether they really want to save their homes, says a specialist in the trenches.

Participants in a recent American Banker roundtable debated whether banks should keep adding deposits to build customer relationships down the road.

Security Federal Corp. in Aiken, S.C.. has reorganized as a bank holding company and its subsidiary, Security Federal Bank, has converted from a federally chartered thrift to a state-regulated commercial bank.

LendingTree's findings have not reassured mortgage industry members worried about regulatory efforts to raise the minimum amount home buyers must put down upfront.

A group of commercial-mortgage backed securities investors is suing a junior lender and other parties, alleging a "brazen scheme," to steal more than $60 million from bondholders, according to a New York court filing.

The market for corporate borrowing through U.S. commercial paper dropped to the lowest level in two months as investors reduced holdings of banks' short-term IOUs on concern that Europe's fiscal crisis is spreading.

Hawaii is by far the priciest state for houses in the U.S., while Mississippi is the least expensive state in which to buy a home.

CEO James Smith invokes image of George Bailey in telling ABC World News With Diane Sawyer that Webster's mortgage modification program has paid off.

Pinnacle Financial Partners Inc. in Nashville, Tenn., has moved a step closer toward exiting the Troubled Asset Relief Program.

Continuing to bulk up in Texas through bite-sized deals, Independent Bank Group Inc. in McKinney said this week that it is buying the $155 million-asset I Bank Texas in Austin.

Online banking customers for King's Town Bank in Taipei, Taiwan, can now send and receive Western Union money transfers internationally.

In the realm of payment card data security, 2011 qualifies as the year in which "more" became a key term on many levels.

NB&T Financial Group Inc. in Wilmington, Ohio, said it expects fourth-quarter provision for loan losses to be "substantially" higher than it was last quarter due to a likely default on a loan to a single commercial customer that has $1 million balance.

For Bank of America, its recent decision to sell credit card assets says a lot about its need to focus. For other bankers, it says a lot about the opportunity to become buyers.

Federal regulators seem to be of two minds about the Community Reinvestment Act, a law with an explicit and limited congressional purpose of requiring each banking regulator "to use its authority when examining financial institutions, to encourage such institutions to help meet the credit needs of the local communities in which they are chartered consistent with the safe and sound operation of such institutions."

The Federal Housing Administration has suspended its antiflipping rules for another year to facilitate financing and sales of newly renovated foreclosed properties.

Home values across the country fell $700 billion in 2011, or 35% less than the $1.1 trillion that was lost in 2010, according to Zillow. The majority of estimated 2011 the losses occurred in the first half.

The serious delinquency rate on Federal Housing Administration loans rose a full percentage point over four months to 9.3% in November.

Uncertainty, competition and even attacks. In 2012, independent sales organizations face a year of danger and opportunity.