Commerce Bank founder Vernon Hill has lost his bid to collect more than $17 million in back pay from Toronto-Dominion Bank, which bought Commerce in 2007.

Shareholders at HopFed Bancorp have elected a director nominated by a critic of the Hopkinsville, Ky., company's latest acquisition deal.

The board of First Northern Community Bancorp in Dixon, Calif., has elected new leadership.

Gries Investment Fund, a Florida investment group, has canceled plans to buy Southern Commerce Bank in Tampa, according to a newspaper report.

Geoffrey Hesslink, an executive vice president, was promoted to the newly created post, the $1.7 billion-asset company said Tuesday.

Smaller banks may decide now is a good time to go public and raise capital for acquisitions and other growth opportunities.

The Fed on May 15 lifted a 2009 written agreement that barred the $326 million-asset Tysan from taking on debt or repurchasing stock without regulatory approval.

Umpqua CEO Raymond Davis expects banks to focus on customer service and building smaller branches in the years to come.

S&T Bancorp in Indiana, Pa., has appointed a new chairman.

Two bank deals, one in New Jersey and the other in California, have won regulatory approval and are nearing completion.

Like Jamie Dimon, a number of bank leaders have been in fights to keep their chairmanships from being lopped off in recent years. Many lost, and a few survived—but it's rarely pretty.

Mark Jaindl, a Pennsylvania banker, fell less than 100,000 short of shaking up the board at the parent of Home Savings Bank.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid plans to hold a long-awaited vote later this week on the confirmation of Richard Cordray as director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. With the opposition GOP planning to block the nomination, the move is a rehash of past battles and a sign that politics is once again trumping pragmatism in bank policymaking, argues Washington Bureau Chief Rob Blackwell. Ironically, the Republican's opposition will keep the CFPB focused largely on banks, rather than on their nonbank rivals, and could end up doing their banker friends more harm than good.

Ohio Valley Bank in Gallipolis has joined the Federal Reserve System.

Wintrust Financial in Rosemont, Ill., has retooled the ranks at its Wheaton Bank & Trust.

Organic growth, dealmaking and innovation are taking a backseat to compliance, bank executives told KPMG in a new survey.

The activist investor claims that D.F. King failed to turn in a master ballot, causing his board candidate to lose an election.

The $208 million-asset bank has filed an application for the change with regulators, it said last week. Executives wanted to get away from the geographically limiting name, though they plan to keep the bank's headquarters in Lowell.

The best-connected bankers in town combine heartfelt community involvement with hard-headed pragmatism about the importance of personal relationships when doing business. American Banker Magazine Editor Heather Landy discusses what others can learn from their examples.

The $2 billion-asset company in Rockville, Conn., said Monday it plans to repurchase as many as 10% of its roughly 2.7 million shares outstanding.