Commercial banking

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.

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

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

The North Carolina-based regional bank still expects its revenue to outpace its spending this year, though if interest rates hold steady, it could "create some risk," a top executive said Friday.

Prosperity Bancshares announced plans to buy Corpus Christi-based American Bank Holding Corp. in an all-stock deal.

A new federal law that decouples health savings accounts from high-deductible insurance plans is expected to be a tailwind for the Connecticut bank's health care unit.

Executives believe the Dallas bank will hit its target for improving a key profitability metric later this year, driven by investment and trading fee income.

After a strong performance in the second quarter, the regional bank's CEO, Bryan Jordan, talked about the resilience of borrowers in the current economic climate.

CEO Brian Moynihan plans to keep directing some of the bank's excess capital into new market expansions, he said Wednesday. "Organic growth is the reality," given the bank's already dominant U.S. market share, he said.

Executives at the New York bank said that strategic activity has started to pick up over the last month. Morgan Stanley also reported second-quarter revenue and earnings that beat analysts' expectations.

The New York-based company reported big increases in investment banking and trading revenue, and said it might consider a deal to boost its asset and wealth management business.

The global bank reported solid second-quarter results as executives maintain confidence in the bank's ability to achieve a return on tangible common equity of 10-11% next year. But an analyst said Citi's progress on reducing expenses will hinge on its ability to get freed from various enforcement actions.

Chairman and CEO Jamie Dimon said in a Tuesday statement that "the U.S. economy remained resilient" during the second quarter, adding that the recent tax cuts and potential deregulation are "positive for the economic outlook."

Loan growth and laxer capital requirements figure to be hot topics during second-quarter earnings season, which starts Tuesday. It's a turnaround from three months ago, when tariff worries were rampant.

Steep trade barriers that were set to go into effect on July 9 have once again been put on pause, giving banks a welcome reprieve, but adding still more pressure and uncertainty on the Federal Reserve and the broader economy.

The show business-themed restaurant, which benefited from a federal loan near the start of the pandemic, says it now owes millions thanks to the Miami-based bank's "fraud, negligence, and misrepresentations." A BankUnited spokesperson declined to comment.

Community banks that could reel in cheap deposits while keeping a lid on expenses were able to outperform peers in 2024.

The new trade levies are changing the way businesses import and export goods and how they finance their transactions. HSBC's Marissa Adams, Europe and Americas Regional Head of Global Trade Solutions, discusses what's next.