This year, American Banker reporters dove deep into topics such as gambling addiction, Citigroup's rebuild, the Small Business Administration, fraud and monetary policy for its feature articles. Check out the most consequential articles of the year.

When combined, the top five states have roughly 23.9 million households classified as unbanked according to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.

We've seen what can happen when BaaS providers fail to adequately protect consumers. Across the industry, we need to institutionalize the principles of safe banking, both inside and outside of traditional banks.

New bureau research digs into the fees that bettors get charged when they use credit cards to fund gambling accounts.

The Columbus, Ohio-based bank said its all-stock bid for Penns Woods Bancorp would expand its footprint and give it $1.7 billion of deposits and $1.9 billion of loans.

Months of painful restructuring may be paying off as the Charlottesville, Virginia-based company reported a modest third-quarter profit after more than a year of losses.

The bank ends the year with a substantially different profile from early 2024, which brought new leadership, a significant reduction to its mortgage operations and a corporate rebrand.

The combination would create a Northeast regional bank with nearly $24 billion of assets. It would rank as the eighth-largest bank in the Boston metropolitan area by deposit market share.

The bank said it redeployed proceeds from the sale into high-yielding investments. It also said it would end an employee pension plan to curb expenses.

A close result was complicated by an hour-long adjournment of the New York-based company's annual meeting that angered dissident investors and left them mulling legal action.

The post-pandemic increase in consumers falling behind on their credit card bills seems to be tapering off. "For 2025, we're seeing a lot of stability in delinquencies," an industry researcher said.

Orange Bank and Trust in Middletown says it will operate as a boutique commercial bank, focusing on small business, nonprofits and the borough's sizzling housing construction market.

Banks that don't focus on credit cards for this market may find larger banks and fintechs are eating their lunch.

The bank has hired an advisory firm to assess a potential sale, a capital raise or a strategic partnership after a prior merger fell through.

A slower rate of price increases would boost the likelihood of an interest-rate cut that could expand loan demand and lower banks' deposit costs. A higher pace of inflation, however, could derail those catalysts.

The Honolulu-based bank is taking a $19.7 million pretax loss to rid its balance sheet of low-yielding investments. It joined a parade of banks that have made similar moves.

Banking South Korean companies has become a major pillar of the Los Angeles-based Hanmi's balance sheet, with a portfolio of loans approaching $1 billion.

The unionization push by members of the bank's conduct management intake team has been hotly contested. If approved, it would represent a landmark in the effort to organize workers at the $1.9 trillion-asset bank.