Capitol Bancorp Ltd. has agreed to sell its interest in Bank of Las Colinas for a second time.

A firm we know needed a $20,000 letter of credit to extend its lease. So, it went in turn to the banks it uses, at each of which it maintains cash deposits well north of an order of magnitude larger than the letter of credit requested. Also, the firm has no debt and has annual revenues in the high seven figures. So, could it get the letter of credit renewed?

In the wake of Standard & Poor's downgrade of U.S. government debt on Friday, fears about capital markets exposure are now taking precedence over mortgages and cancelling out the perceived safety that investors normally ascribe to the largest banks.

First BanCorp of Puerto Rico reported a smaller second-quarter loss than it did a year earlier, due in part to a smaller loan-loss provision and a pair of special gains.

WASHINGTON - Two failures Friday evening cost the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. an estimated $160 million.

The board at Cardinal Bankshares Corp. responded Thursday to a series of demands by Douglas Schaller, rejecting the activist shareholder's assertion that the company should sell itself.

With its coffers at capacity, the capital-flush Cincinnati company said recently it would raise its dividend to equal 100% of its quarterly earnings.

The buzz word "duplicative" has been making the rounds lately, employed by watchdog groups and politicians to describe government programs which overlap and offer redundant services at taxpayer expense.

Forget the crumb of good news in the jobs report. The economy is getting worse, not better. It's time to waive the white flag and lower your price tag unless you are a strong bank.

BancorpSouth Inc. said late Thursday that it is selling a pair of Texas branches to First National Bank of Hughes Springs in Texas.

WASHINGTON — Twenty small banks will receive a total of $253 million in the latest round of funding from the Small Business Lending Fund, according to the Treasury Department.

Madison National Bancorp Inc. in Melville, N.Y., is giving an investment group an additional six months to complete its planned acquisition, but the seller is building in insurance.

The industry's giants have received most of the flows generated by tidal shifts in money markets, and have been impelled to shore up core funding by new liquidity rules.

President Obama has finally nominated a director for CFPB, but the move came at least a year too late to do the agency any good.

First Security Bank of Nevada in Las Vegas has received a much-needed capital boost.

Agency unveils new pilot program for smaller investors wanting to bid on loans.

Aided by two acquisitions and sharply lower deposit costs, BankFinancial Corp. in Burr Ridge, Ill., swung to a profit of $1 million in the second quarter from a loss of $288,000 in the same period last year.

Cardinal Bankshares' biggest outside shareholder is hopping mad over an act that normally gives investors comfort: succession planning.

The number of deals rose slightly in the second quarter, but take away big acquisitions by PNC and Capital One and the value of them fell.

Banking has become a complicated business, and working with regulators and other outside parties such as auditors and shareholders makes it even more so. Management teams, especially directors, increasingly need simpler tools such as dashboard reports and guidelines rather than complex methodologies and models.