Carolina Financial in Charleston, S.C., has agreed to acquire 13 branches in the Carolinas and additional assets from First Community Bancshares in Bluefield, Va.

Northrim BanCorp in Anchorage, Alaska, has agreed to buy Residential Mortgage Holding Co.

Hal Brown and Roger Busse discuss how a thorough succession plan can reassure your regulators, why medical lending has been so hot recently and how to stand out among larger competitors.

The private-equity firms Warburg Pincus and Thomas H. Lee Partners are selling roughly a third of their combined stake in Umpqua Holdings of Portland, Ore.

The $5.6 billion-asset Talmer Bancorp said in a press release Wednesday that it will pay $13.4 million in cash for First of Huron, the parent of Signature Bank.

BancorpSouth has withdrawn applications for two planned acquisitions after the Tupelo, Miss., company drew regulatory scrutiny for its Bank Secrecy Act compliance.

Independent Bank Corp. has spent recent years looking for a way to break into Boston without overpaying. It recently found a steal in Peoples Federal, a former mutual, in a deal that boosts earnings and tangible book value.

The members of Monterey Credit Union have voted to convert from a CU charter to a mutual savings bank, the first step on the way to becoming a commercial savings bank.

Creating deeper bonds with business clients can help banks win market share. But organizational inertia and sales managers who are quick to fall back on old habits often hobble this approach, according to consultant Duncan Banfield.

While bankers' reputation as the unquestioned authorities on financial services may be changing, the importance of face-to-face interactions has not lessened, according to contributor Dave Martin.

Independent Bank in Rockland, Mass., has agreed to buy Peoples Federal Bancshares in Brighton.

Ocean Shore Holding in New Jersey has completed a buyback of 200,000 shares of its common stock and has authorized an additional repurchase program.

Stronger margins are no automatic byproduct of next year's anticipated increase in interest rates. Higher rates are expected to spark a runoff of deposits at various banks, and some of those banks are more vulnerable than others to steep losses of low-cost funding.

Banks with at least $10 billion in assets are becoming more aggressive when it comes to giving out small business loans, but the group still approves credit at a much smaller rate than its competitors, a Biz2Credit study found.

As consolidation picks up, buyers and sellers must examine their vendor contracts to make sure terms and pricing are in their favor.

First South Bank in Washington, N.C., has replaced a small outpost with a new full service banking office in the greater Outer Banks area.

A report on big bank subsidies offers proof that statutory, regulatory, and industry changes have strengthened the financial system in the years since the crisis, according to Financial Services Forum chief Rob Nichols.

First Internet Bancorp in Indianapolis has appointed its next chief financial officer.

On the West Coast, bankers are talking about starting new banks after a long period with scarcely any new charters, according to industry consultant and former California regulator Walter Mix. While in the aftermath of the crisis regulators seemed to have an unofficial moratorium on de novos, they now appear poised to evaluate applications on the merits, he says. Meanwhile, banks seeking approvals for mergers today can expect to be evaluated on a host of compliance matters, including unfair and deceptive acts and practices, Mix says.

Brian Bailey, who oversaw Wilmington Trust's lending activity in Delaware, conspired to conceal the company's actual financial condition, according to a news release issued Monday by the Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program.