The banking industry's image is about as awful as it's ever been. But what needs to be done by whom, and at what cost, to fix it? Editor at Large Barb Rehm has some ideas.

Recent proxy fights illustrate how the high-stakes contests are getting ever more expensive for bankers and insurgents alike.

Bad times are driving a large majority of banks to rethink their operating models, a KPMG survey says. Wealth management and technology are priorities, branches may have to be turned into marketing stores, and M&A is still back burner.

A Kansas banking company that last week raised fresh capital to fuel its growth has struck a deal that would more than double its size.

BNC Bancorp has no immediate plans to exit the program, despite recently raising $73 million from a private placement. CEO Swope Montgomery believes BNC's acquisitions will more than offset the current 5% borrowing rate for the Tarp funds.

When a California bank took a former employee to court over his insulting statements on the Internet, an appellate court said his speech was protected from prosecution.

As head of the Mortgage Bankers Association, David H. Stevens spent the last year warning that excessive and ill-considered regulation could drag down the mortgage market. As the new head of SunTrust Mortgage, he'll have to face that regulation head-on.

The Treasury Department announced Tuesday that it plans to sell off its shares in seven more community banks as part of its ongoing effort to wind down the Troubled Asset Relief Program.

More than 30 state trade associations have joined the Independent Community Bankers of America in urging Congress to extend the Transaction Account Guarantee program, which offers banks unlimited deposit insurance on transaction accounts.

An effort is gaining momentum to require banks that want municipal business to lend more in low-income neighborhoods. And it's not just mega-banks being targeted — smaller banks are seen as fairing worse in this type of lending.

In what would be its first acquisition in nearly a decade, Peoples Bancorp (PEBO) in Marietta, Ohio, announced Tuesday that it is buying Sistersville Bancorp in West Virginia for $9.8 million in cash.

BNC, of High Point, N.C., would pay $35 million for First Trust, its fifth deal in the Carolinas in nine months.

IMGCAP(1)]

A Texas investor has filed a suit against former top executives at a failed Tennessee bank seeking to recover the nearly $1.2 million he pumped into the bank during a 2010 stock sale.

Recent proxy battles show that the high-stakes clashes are getting pricey for management teams and irate shareholders.

When making a point to banker groups about how much the week-to-week banking habits of Americans have changed in recent years, one simple question tends to create much side chatter, nods and chuckles.

Concord Bank of St. Louis has named Lance Greunke as interim chief executive and president to replace Tony Feraro, who died in May.

Freed from an enforcement order that led it to sharply reduce its assets, Guaranty Bancorp in Denver is now turning its attention to growth.

BancorpSouth (BXS) has reached a settlement in principle for a class-action lawsuit alleging that the Tupelo, Miss., company violated federal securities law.

Royal Financial in Chicago reported a fiscal third-quarter loss of $421,000, compared to earnings of $41,000 a year earlier, as noninterest expense rose.