Payday lenders are raising the stakes in their pushback on Operation Choke Point with a lawsuit against banking regulators, alleging that "back-room pressure of banks" to dissolve longstanding relationships with payday shops and others is unfairly harming the industry.

Big banks can afford mega-settlements to solve their woes, but First Horizon National in Tennessee has to fix itself the old-fashioned way: slow cleaning up of its mortgage mess, opportunistic acquisitions, opening loans offices … and, oh yes, begging investors for a few more years of patience.

A recap of the informed opinions (and the discussions they generated) on BankThink this week.

The $9.7 billion-asset company said in a regulatory filing Wednesday that it could sell the stock from time to time through Credit Suisse Securities.

The $1.6-billion asset company, based in Asheville, N.C., is headed into Virginia for the first time after announcing plans Thursday to open a commercial loan production office in Roanoke.

A former Georgia community banker who was accused of fraud and faked suicide has pleaded guilty to three felony charges for his role in allegedly defrauding a bank and private investors.

The company claims in a lawsuit against the Puerto Rican government that the territory could lose "a major lender in the Puerto Rico housing market" if it is denied a $230 million tax refund.

Donald Shamey, president and chief executive at NexTier Bank in Butler, Pa. will retire in July after 40 years at the helm.

The Columbus, Ohio, company started giving away pens in its branches in 2010. Now more than 20 million are in circulation around the world with a few ending up in bizarre places, including the movie Bad Grandpa.

Fidelity Southern (LION) in Atlanta said Thursday that it is buying five branches and roughly $200 million of deposits from CenterState Bank of Florida (CSFL).

BNC Bancorp (BNCN) in High Point, N.C., has agreed to buy Harbor Bank Group in Charleston, S.C.

A federal judge has ruled that a Kansas-based payday lending operation intentionally deceived borrowers about the cost of their loans.

It's rare that a regulatory filing would quote the song "Livin' La Vida Loca," but that's just what some Doral investors say the Puerto Rican government is doing in its refusal to restore $230 million of the bank's tax payments.

The company spent years looking in vain for the right deal at the right price before finding TF Financial. The deal adds a healthy bank and a much-needed beachhead in New Jersey, though it also pushes National Penn closer to $10 billion in assets.

Economists and housing experts maintain that the housing crisis is long over, but many Americans beg to differ.

The federal banking agencies on Wednesday began an extensive effort — required by a law passed before the financial crisis — to gather feedback about which rules should be placed under the microscope for potential regulatory relief.

The Armed Forces Benefit Association plans to sell its bank to local management. While insurers have been fleeing the industry due to regulation, the group says it is getting out because its membership's use of the bank is falling and it would rather use the capital to expand its life insurance business.

M&T Bank (MTB) in Buffalo, N.Y., has been named the exclusive banker for its hometown Erie County, which was looking to cut costs.