American Banker Magazine's recent article on the Small Business Administration's Karen Mills was quite a love-fest. Here's the other side of the story that would be good for the public to hear.

The United States needs a new, 21st-century model for identifying, monitoring and reporting risk at banks. The model must be forward-looking, not backward-looking as the Camels ratings are.

Tech startups are gunning to compete with banks by providing financial services to low-income and other underserved customers. Many of the offerings provide me-too services with limited appeal, however, rather than attractive innovations.

Suffolk Bancorp in Riverhead, N.Y., has been released from a written agreement with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.

Farmers National Banc in Canfield, Ohio is buying an employee-benefits consultant.

AmericanWest Bank in Spokane, Wash., has agreed to buy eight southern California branches from First PacTrust Bancorp in Irvine, Calif.

Enrollment is up at the ABA Stonier Graduate School of Banking as banks return to financial health and executives once again invest in their employees' development.

Kids master fundamentals of banking at Montecito Bank's financial literacy summer program, Fun in the Sun.

Karen Mills, the outgoing head of the Small Business Administration, gets high marks from bankers for cutting red tape, revamping little-used programs, improving outreach, and, most important, convincing lawmakers to raise caps so that banks could make larger loans.

WASHINGTON — Wisconsin suffered its first bank failure in over two years late Friday as regulators closed a small institution in Kenosha and sold off most of its operations.

The Federal Reserve Board hit Naugatuck Valley with a memorandum of understanding on May 21, the $526 million-asset company said late Friday.

Eagle Bancorp (EGBN) in Bethesda, Md., claims that proxy advisory firm ISS made mathematical errors when it urged investors to vote against compensation for CEO Ron Paul and other officers.

The Michigan company is set to raise up to $100 million if the right acquisition is available. Analysts say in an erratic M&A market, it is better to be ready to raise capital than to raise it and wait.

The pace of expansion decelerated in April as bankers complained about competition for commercial loans and a slackening of consumer loan demand.

Freddie says its new "low-activity" fee will offset the cost of monitoring the loans it buys, but avoiding it could be a challenge for lenders in rural markets.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. has taken enforcement actions against eight banks and freed 12 others from prior orders, according to a series of orders released Friday.

Net interest margins are complex beasts. During the last Fed tightening cycle, the yield curve turned negative and margins narrowed.

Oxford Bank in Michigan has terminated its planned sale to Level One Bancorp due to regulatory delays and an improvement in Oxford's financial condition.

Clarkston Financial in Michigan has implemented a 10-for-1 reverse stock split.

BNC Bancorp in High Point, N.C., has agreed to buy Randolph Bank & Trust in Asheboro, N.C.