Americas

A changing asset mix boosted third-quarter results at Sterling Bancorp (STL) in New York. The $2.5 billion-asset company's rose 23% from a year earlier, to $5.3 million.

Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) will pay $42 million to settle a probe by Nevada's attorney general into its mortgage-purchase practices before the housing crisis.

Trustmark's company's earnings rose 2% from the second quarter and 9.5% from a year earlier, to $29.9 million. The Jackson, Miss., company said in a press release late Tuesday that higher revenue from insurance commissions and mortgages helped boost its bottom line.

Earnings at FirstMerit, the $14.6 billion-asset Akron, Ohio, bank rose 10%, to $34.9 million in the third quarter, compared with a year earlier, it reported Tuesday. Noninterest expense fell 6.4%, to $108.5 million, over the same period.

F.N.B. Corp. (FNB) in Hermitage, Pa., said late Monday it had agreed to buy Annapolis Bancorp (ANNB), which owns the Bank of Annapolis, for $51 million in stock.

First Defiance Financial (FDEF) in Defiance, Ohio, reported third-quarter income of $5.4 million, up 32% from a year earlier, as credit costs dissipated.

C&I lending exploded at SunTrust in the third quarter, it cleared its balance sheet of some lingering problems and CEO Bill Rogers is bullish on mortgages. But the question remains whether the Atlanta company will need to do more to exorcise the past.

Three banks failed Friday – including two in Florida – and will cost the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. an estimated $86 million. Regulators seized the $200 million-asset Excel Bank in Sedalia, Mo.; the $159 million-asset GulfSouth Private Bank in Destin, Fla.; and the $67 million-asset First East Side Savings Bank in Tamarac, Fla.

First Financial Northwest in Renton, Wash., a $973 million-asset company, lost $791,000 in the third quarter, compared to net income of $1.4 million in the second quarter and profit of $623,000 a year earlier.

First Horizon Financial National (FHN) saw its stock fall almost 5% in early trading Friday after announcing a $30 million charge tied to loans where the borrower has liquidated debts in bankruptcy court.