Ninety institutions made American Banker's 10th annual list of the Best Banks to Work For. Here are insights about communication, leadership, culture and more from executives at this year's honorees.

Inconsistent rules for calculating bank capital threaten to cut off small banks from a key source of liquidity.

The Seattle bank's all-stock deal for Luther Burbank Corp. is expected to close as soon as the second quarter of 2023.

Spencer Savings in New Jersey is taking investor Larry Seidman to court, alleging he's conspiring with other customers to convert the bank to stock ownership. Seidman says it's a farce: "I'm in a conspiracy with people I don't know."

Savanna-Thomson State Bank in Illinois has agreed to buy Fidelity Bank in Iowa and says it expects to complete the acquisition early next year.

The $186 million deal, announced in November 2021, was originally expected to close in the first half of this year. "The environment for M&A is just more challenging," an OceanFirst executive says.

David DePillo stepped down not long after the company said it would tap the brakes on loan growth and focus on lagging deposit gathering.

The Dallas company says it could repurchase as much as 8% of its common stock and still have the wherewithal to pursue an acquisition — all in an effort to strengthen its value in the eyes of investors.

The state's largest banks posted solid third-quarter loan growth and earnings. But Hawaii's tourism-heavy economy is vulnerable to lofty inflation and the threat of a downturn.

The $7.1 billion-asset bank has established a partnership with the nonprofit HoneyBee that harks to its early days serving underbanked Korean business owners in Los Angeles in the early 1980s.

The shift in refi behavior — in the wake of multiple Federal Reserve interest rate hikes — helped fuel a loan growth trend that's expected to continue through year-end.

High-net-worth clients with large policies borrow, on average, $500,000 to $800,000 to pay their premiums. Peapack-Gladstone predicts the product, which it launched this month, will be one of its top business lines within six years.

Republic Bancorp said it would pay $51 million in cash for CBank and its subsidiary Commercial Industrial Finance.

Strong commodity prices and jumps in energy production fuel the Oklahoma bank's upbeat outlook for continued loan demand, despite inflationary pressures and high interest rates.

The all-stock acquisition of Limestone Bancorp in Louisville would give the buyer an additional $1.5 billion of assets and 20 branches in the Bluegrass State.

Bank of Princeton in New Jersey said it would pay $25 million in cash to acquire Noah Bank, whose former CEO was convicted on charges that included bank bribery and theft.

Citizens Financial said it would pay $67.4 million to buy HV Bancorp, the holding company for Huntingdon Valley Bank, in a bid to expand in Greater Philadelphia.

The parent of City National Bank of West Virginia said it would pay $61 million in stock to acquire Citizens Commerce Bancshares.

Since 1982, the Small Business Administration's 7(a) program has been restricted almost entirely to banks and credit unions. A proposed rule would open it to fintech lenders.