Large securities portfolios have helped generate relatively weak net interest margins as rates have become anchored at historically low levels.

First Bancorp in Troy, N.C., has received $63.5 million from the Treasury Department's small-business lending program and has used the funds to exit the agency's Troubled Asset Relief Program.

First Niagara Financial is expected to divest roughly a quarter of the 195 branches it's buying from HSBC. Industry observers have identified at least five community banks that may make bids.

In striking its deal for First Louisiana National Bank, MidSouth Bancorp Inc. structured the deal to include a set number of shares, rather than allow the deal to be at the whim of the stock market.

Cullen/Frost Bankers Chief Executive Dick Evans says he's "not interested" in making acquisitions outside of Texas, and derides mounting competitive threats from community bank rivals by comparing them to the "juvenile delinquents down the street."

Banks of all sizes are tackling changes in regulations such as RESPA. Bank of Billings is using loan documentation compliance software to meet the challenge.

The Federal Reserve on Thursday announced two written agreements and three civil money penalties.

Weighed down by problem loans, Anchor Bancorp in Lacey, Wash., reported a loss of $4.7 million in the quarter that ended June 30, more than quadrupling its loss from the same period a year earlier.

Steven Goldman, a former banking commissioner of New Jersey, has been appointed to the board of North Jersey Community Bancorp in Englewood Cliffs, N.J.

Cross-selling is a familiar concept for bankers. The chief revenue officer is not. Tower Bancorp Chairman and CEO Andrew Samuel is slated to become the chief risk officer at Susquehanna Bancshares in Litiz, Pa., which is buying Tower, in a deal expected to close in the first quarter of 2012.

FirstBank in Colorado unveiled an advertising campaign over the summer promising "Mortgages Made Easy," which focuses on the process of obtaining a mortgage, rather than the more common tactic of highlighting rates.

Focusing on signs of improvement, community bankers sounded unusually cheerful; some investors thought unduly so. Bonnie McGeer reports from Keefe, Bruyette & Woods' conference.

Nearly half of U.S. banks and thrifts with $2 billion to $10 billion in assets had lower net income in 2010. In the aggregate, mid-tiers earned just $935 million last year. At least it was an improvement from an overall loss of $1.4 billion in 2009.

With trouble spots lacking potential acquirers, M&A activity in most markets is slow.

United Community Financial Corp. in Youngstown, Ohio, said late Wednesday that it would sell four branches in the western part of the state to a unit of Croghan Bancshares Inc.

Look closely at the structure of the First PacTrust deal for Beach Business Bank to see how deal negotiators are hedging against stock volatility. Expect to see more creative pacts like this one.

First PacTrust said it wants Beach Business Bank for it commercial loans after just announcing a deal for a mortgage operation.

Big bank margins have contracted for five consecutive quarters, and are poised to shrink again during the current period amid a continuing buildup of deposits and a flatter yield curve.

Strong opinions abound on the future of bank branches. Will branches be relevant 10 years from now? Will financial technology solutions be able to significantly disrupt the business of banking such that branches, at least as we know them today, become obsolete?

WASHINGTON — Banks are again urging policymakers to reject proposals that would allow credit unions to make more business loans.