MIDWEST

FirstMerit Corp. of Akron, Ohio, will need sharp elbows as it expands into the city of broad shoulders.

As reform moves forward, Congress should focus risk retention on securities and high-risk assets that have been proven to generate high defaults, market imbalances and disruptions.

President Obama now has an historic opportunity to make sure that the small group of governors that runs the Fed represents consumers and not just the banking industry.

U.S. revolving credit, 98% of which is credit card debt, fell to $864.4 billion in January from a revised total of $866.1 billion in December, marking the 16th consecutive month that saw Americans shed credit card debt, according to the Federal Reserve's latest G.19 report.

[Re "Politics, Economics Clash in CUs' Bid to Lift Cap," March 8]Doubling the credit unions' member business loan limit won't increase small business lending or create jobs.

The Federal Reserve is requiring Idaho Bancorp, which operates the Idaho Banking Co., to submit a plan to maintain sufficient capital.

BURLINGTON, N.C. – Proponent FCU, chartered to serve employees of Hoffman-LaRoche’s New Jersey headquarters, has opened a 16,000 square-foot branch and administrative offices to serve the pharmaceutical giant’s employees here.

APPLETON, Wis. – Community First CU has opened a branch at Jefferson Elementary School.

ANDERSON, Ind. – Independent FCU will unveil its new headquarters today with a grand opening ribbon-cutting ceremony and will offer donations to Madison County charities, prizes and giveaways for the public, live radio remote coverage and building tours.

DUBUQUE, Iowa – Dupaco Community CU yesterday said it has reached an agreement to purchase a branch from East Dubuque Savings Bank, a local institution.

MURRAY, Utah – Utah Power CU has hired local contractor Big-D Construction to build a new home office, a two-story, 18,000-square-foot building.

The Federal Reserve Board gave the $200 million-asset Horizon Bank a narrow time frame to raise capital or find a buyer.

The painful rescue of the financial industry may yield a surprise gift: a new securities market that could become a lucrative source of capital for banks.

Bank regulators issued 1,143 formal enforcement actions against banks and their holding companies last year, a new record and more than double the 2008 tally.

TIB Financial Corp. of Naples, Fla., said its fourth-quarter loss widened to $45.1 million from $13.2 million a year earlier.

Susquehanna Bancshares Inc. of Lititz, Pa., announced it is raising as much as $395 million in capital and said it could use some of the money to repay the Treasury Department.

With so many banks ailing, use of the Texas ratio, a quick way of assessing capital adequacy, has returned to the forefront of bank analysis.

LifeLock Inc. agreed today to pay $11 million to the Federal Trade Commission and $1 million to a group of 35 state attorneys general to settle charges that the company used false claims to promote its identity theft protection services.

An estimated 764 different collection agencies and creditors are named in 899 consumer statute lawsuits filed nationwide in February, according to data from U.S. District Court complaint dockets. The numbers are up from a month earlier when 712 agencies and creditors were named in 851 lawsuits, according to research firm WebRecon LLC, which compiles the monthly data.