Amcore Financial Inc. in Rockford, Ill., announced Friday that regulators have imposed higher capital requirements on its bank unit.

DENVER – Colorado State Employees CU has purchased a former branch of Bank of the West for $960,000.

TAMPA, Fla. – GTE FCU is hoping to build a new branch on a city-owned lot in the underserved midtown community in nearby St. Petersburg, known as the 22nd Street Corridor.

To the list of things dividing large and small banks, add the Troubled Asset Relief Program.

Citing trouble with its construction loans, Cascade Financial Corp. in Everett, Wash., said Thursday that it expects to report a second-quarter loss of $19 million to $21 million.

Consider this simple question: Why does the government restrict the ability of pension funds, mutual funds and other kinds of institutional investors to invest in most banks? Banks are an industry in which "capital is king." Institutional investors control most of the world's capital. Their interests do not inherently conflict with banks'. So why put barriers between them?

An Idaho start-up bank has called off a private-equity deal that it had hoped would help it reach profitability.

MIDWEST

At least seven community banks have taken the Treasury Department up on its offer to make bigger capital injections under the Troubled Asset Relief Program.

Still in a capital pinch, AmTrust Financial Corp. of Cleveland is selling more of its Ohio branches.

SAN FRANCISCO – 1st Pacific CU has sold a downtown office building at 131 Franklin St. for $3 million.

OSHKOSH, Wis. – CitizensFirst CU began construction yesterday on a new 30,000 square-foot green headquarters.

Seacoast Banking Corp. of Florida is preparing to raise capital through a common stock offering, with one goal being to resume paying dividends on its government infusion.

Yadkin Valley Financial Corp. has benefited from a serendipitous turn of events.

Regulators are threatening to seize the critically undercapitalized Community National Bank of Sarasota County in Venice, Fla.

Shares of First California Financial Group Inc. dropped Monday after the $1.47 billion-asset Westlake Village company said that higher loan losses caused it to revise its first-quarter results and swing to a loss.

Cherokee Bank in Canton, Ga., must boost its capital and reduce its problem assets to satisfy a regulatory order.

Imagine looking up at seven cents on the dollar.

As Jay S. Sidhu takes the helm of a small bank in the Philadelphia suburbs, he aims to recreate some of what he achieved at Sovereign Bancorp Inc.