Retail & Commercial

Eagle Bancorp in Maryland took a major quarterly loss due to challenges in its office loan portfolio. It's one of many banks working to trim down their commercial real estate loan books.

The two Southeast banks agreed to combine in a transaction valued at $8.6 billion. Synovus CEO Kevin Blair would be chief executive of the combined bank, but a slim majority of board members would come from Pinnacle.

Flagstar Bank wants to merge its holding company into the bank, which would cut $15 million in annual expenses and eliminate regulatory oversight by the Federal Reserve, leaving the OCC as its primary regulator. The bank's CEO, Joseph Otting, is a former comptroller of the currency.

Fannie Mae also foresees more home sales than it did in June, but the Mortgage Bankers Association reduced its origination projections for 2025.

A coalition of consumer groups sued the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and acting Director Russell Vought for refusing to implement a statutorily mandated small-business data collection rule that is already tied up in litigation.

Among banks with between $10 billion and $50 billion of assets, those that targeted narrow lending markets rose to the top.

Growing loans was a tall order in 2024, but banks that could do just that were able to outperform their peers.

The House Financial Services Committee passed a number of bipartisan banking bills with wide margins, suggesting a growing consensus on how to handle issues like deposit insurance, de novo bank formation and the Federal Reserve's discount window.

Complaints to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau have skyrocketed in the first half of 2025, due in part to an increase in payment scams generated by social media that target peer-to-peer payment platforms such as Zelle, Venmo and other apps.

The Evansville, Indiana-based bank has hired Tim Burke to oversee commercial and community banking, along with wealth, credit and marketing.