PrivateBancorp Inc.'s strategy for replacing LaSalle Bank Corp. as the Chicago area's top middle-market lender has been to hire dozens of LaSalle bankers with thick Rolodexes, and its next pickup could be its biggest one yet.

The troubled Franklin Bank Corp. of Houston said late Monday that it has named a new interim chief executive and received another extension for filing its 2007 annual report.

TierOne Corp. of Lincoln, Neb., said Monday that it will close all nine of its loan production offices and will focus instead on lending through bank branches in its home markets of Iowa, Kansas, and Nebraska.

Arco gas stations in California have become favorite targets of thieves who use skimmers to steal debit card information and empty consumers' checking accounts.

A Pennsylvania bank under orders from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency to restrict its insider dealings is trying to dump its national charter in favor of a state charter.

As if losses in their real estate and construction loan portfolios were not worrisome enough, small banks are starting to see problems crop up in another less expected area: their investment portfolios.

The troubled Team Financial Inc. may be putting itself on the block.

Shares of Independent Bank Corp. fell sharply Thursday after the Ionia, Mich., company announced it was slashing its second-quarter dividend, because it needs capital to shore up its loan-loss reserves.

TierOne Corp.'s stock jumped Thursday after the Lincoln, Neb., company said it sold $63.8 million of delinquent Florida residential construction loans.

It took four years for University Bancorp in Ann Arbor, Mich., to develop a home loan product that both complied with the strict laws of Islamic financing and satisfied its regulators, but it was time well spent.

First Citizens Bancorp. of Columbia, S.C., is paying top dollar in a deal to add core deposits and beef up market share in its home state.

MIDWEST

The former chief executive of Vineyard National Bancorp, who is trying to win control of its board, has added another banker to his alternative slate of directors.

Jacksonville Bancorp Inc.'s deal to acquire a fellow Florida company, Heritage Bancshares Inc. in Orange Park, was called off Tuesday because both said it no longer made sense for their shareholders.

Battered by huge losses on loans to developers in Georgia and Florida, Omni National Bank in Atlanta has put its plan to open branches or loan offices throughout the United States on hold.

If a Pennsylvania bank wins a case challenging the way banks there are taxed after a merger, dozens of banks that have made in-state acquisitions could be eligible for refunds.

Hometown Community Bancorp Inc. of Morton, Ill., has a deal to acquire the $178 million-asset Alpha Financial Group Inc. of Toluca.

The recent plunge in Bank of the Ozarks Inc.'s stock might best be explained as guilt by association.

Expecting losses in its residential construction loan portfolio to continue to mount, WGNB Corp. of Carrollton, Ga., is looking to raise as much as $25 million.