Americas

Guaranty Federal Bancshares in Springfield, Mo., has elected James Batten, a director of the company since 2006, as its next chairman.

Truxton Trust's approach is just one strategy banks are using attract more wealthy clients. But whether they are exploring out-of-market opportunities, staying local or employing robo-advisers, banks all have the same goals: to generate more fee income at a time when margins from lending continue to shrink.

HomeStreet in Seattle has agreed to buy most of the assets and deposits of Bank of Oswego, including the Lake Oswego, Ore., bank's branches.

A former cybersecurity expert with the National Security Agency joined the board of directors at Huntington Bancshares in Columbus, Ohio.

State officials in California have asked top online lending firms a series of probing questions regarding their compliance with laws and regulations dealing with referral fees, bank partnerships, fair lending and other sensitive issues.

Farmers National Banc in Canfield, Ohio, has agreed to buy Bowers Insurance Agency in Cortland, Ohio.

Pennsylvania state regulators on Friday closed the $103.3 million-asset First CornerStone Bank in King of Prussia, the third institution to fail this year.

Maria Vullo, still stuck in limbo as acting superintendent of the New York State Department of Financial Services, is hindered from putting her mark on the agency until she gets confirmed. So a quiet guessing game is going on about how her supervisory philosophy will compare with her predecessor Benjamin Lawsky.

One of the last surviving black-owned banks in Chicago was rescued from its loan-related woes by a Ghanaian-American family.

Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss's Gemini Trust Company LLC has gotten a New York State regulator's blessing to trade another kind of cryptocurrency on its bitcoin exchange.