The Federal Reserve has fined two banks for violations of the National Flood Insurance Act.

2011 was the slowest year for bank M&A in two or three decades, depending on whose count you use. Don't expect a big wave next year, though pressure on small banks to sell will intensify.

Edwin Hale officially stepped down Thursday as chairman and CEO of 1st Mariner in Baltimore. The banking company named interim successors.

Continental Illinois' internal auditors had been documenting the deterioration of underwriting quality. Unfortunately, no one listened.

United Bankshares in Charleston, W. Va., and local organizations in the Washington area figured out that cooperating on a bike program could improve big-city commutes, recruit new customers and help the unbanked.

Peoples Bancorp Inc. in Marietta, Ohio, plans to repay its remaining $18 million of federal aid next week.

United Community Financial Corp. in Youngstown, Ohio, completed another step in its capital-raising plan with the sale of four branches to Croghan Bancshares Inc. in Fremont, Ohio.

Synovus Financial Corp. President and Chief Executive Kessel D. Stelling will take on the additional title of chairman when Richard E. Anthony steps down from the position on Jan. 1.

First American Bank Corp. in Elk Grove Village, Ill., has repaid $15 million of the $50 million it received from the Troubled Asset Relief Program with funds it raised in a recent stock sale.

The average checking account costs banks about $350 annually. American Banker editors break down the costs.

Federal pressure to repay Tarp aid is weighing on the minds of prospective sellers, SCBT's Hill and others say.

The wide disparity in valuations is driving the less desperate of would-be sellers to wait for a less volatile environment.

Desperate to purge their books of foreclosures, and tempted by the high price of agricultural land, some bankers and consultants predict an oncoming wave of community banks selling abandoned residential developments to buyers intent on converting the lots to farm land.

Flush with capital after raising roughly $1.1 billion in a stock sale late last year, Capitol Federal Financial Inc. in Topeka, Kan., now plans to deploy some of that capital by repurchasing up to 10% of its shares.

MutualBank in Muncie, Ind., has received regulatory approval to convert from a federal savings bank to a state commercial bank.

First Midwest Bancorp Inc. in Itasca, Ill., said Thursday that it paid $900,000 to repurchase a warrant it had issued to the Treasury Department as part of its participation in the Troubled Asset Relief Program.

ESSA Bancorp Inc. in Stroudsburg, Pa., announced early Thursday that it is buying the $421 million-asset First Star Bancorp Inc. in Bethlehem, Pa., for $24.2 million in cash and stock.

While banks are in varying stages of readiness for compliance, the FFIEC's guidance has affected smaller and regional banks disproportionately. Many must cobble together security systems from multiple vendors to make the grade.

New Century Bancorp in Dunn, N.C., has agreed to sell two of its branches to Lumbee Guaranty Bank in Pembroke, N.C.

BNC Bancorp in High Point, N.C., has agreed to buy KeySource Financial Inc. in Durham, N.C., in an all-stock deal valued at $12.2 million.