Call it the banking equivalent of a farmers market in Brooklyn: A startup is building a platform to highlight mission-driven banks for prospective customers who want to know how their money is lent.

Pacific Premier in California has been firing on all cylinders when it comes to lending, but it needed low-cost deposits. Buying Heritage Oaks Bancorp will do just that.

Renasant in Tupelo, Miss., is the latest bank in the Deep South to announced a large stock offering.

F.N.B. Corp. in Pittsburgh has hired an executive to lead its new Charlotte, N.C., office after it completes its deal for Yadkin Financial.

Southern National Bancorp of Virginia in McLean has agreed to buy Eastern Virginia Bankshares in Glen Allen for $178.3 million.

Flushing Financial in Uniondale, N.Y., has raised $75 million by selling subordinated notes.

ConnectOne Bancorp in Englewood Cliffs, N.J., is looking to raise at least $35 million through a stock offering.

When Access National decided it wanted to buy Middleburg Financial in Virginia, it also wanted to talk to David Sokol, a major investor in Middleburg. It is an eye-catching example of how lone investors can control the outcome of community bank deals.

Pacific Premier Bancorp in Irvine, Calif., has agreed to buy Heritage Oaks Bancorp in Paso Robles, Calif.

Gene Bruyette, a co-founder of Keefe, Bruyette & Woods, the investment bank that became one of the most prolific advisors on bank merger deals, has died. He was 90.

A former director at Pinnacle Financial Partners who pleaded guilty to insider trading agreed to pay a heftier fine after a judge rejected the initial penalty as being too low.

Banks aiming to market internally developed products to other banks are also taking steps to become better vendors. Leader Bank, for instance, took more than a year to get its technology and staffing up to snuff before pitching its rent-payment program.

Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce stands by its cash-and-stock bid to buy U.S. lender PrivateBancorp and is willing to wait out a market rally to complete the deal, Chief Executive Officer Victor Dodig said.

A New Jersey investor has received approval from the Federal Reserve to significantly boost its stake in MSB Financial in Millington, N.J.

The focus of banks' sales practices should be less about unit-based incentives, and more about developing a full relationship with customers and doing what's in their best interest.

HomeTrust Bancshares in Asheville, N.C., has agreed to buy United Financial of North Carolina, a municipal lease finance company based in Fletcher, N.C.

Orrstown Financial Services in Shippensburg, Pa., has acquired Wheatland Advisors in Lancaster, Pa.

Renasant in Tupelo, Miss., is the latest banking company to get out of loss-share agreements with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.

A California bank is planning to add mortgages and home equity lines to its product set.

SmartFinancial in Knoxville, Tenn., has agreed to buy a branch in Tennessee from a division of Atlantic Capital Bank in Atlanta.