Citing improved asset quality and a widening net interest margin, Webster Financial Corp. in Waterbury, Conn., reported a $33.4 million profit in the second quarter, an increase of more than 162% from the same period in 2011.

Aiming to increase its trust assets under management, WSFS Financial Corp. in Wilmington, Del., has formed a seven-member advisory board to help it better serve existing clients and identify new ones.

Shares of Orrstown Financial Inc. fell sharply Friday after the Shippensburg, Pa., company warned that it expects to take a larger-than-expected provision for loan losses in the second quarter.

Tom Considine, who leads the New Jersey Department of Banking & Insurance, has aggressively lobbied federally chartered thrifts, arguing that they're closer than federal regulators, less expensive and they won't dissolve.

The U.N.'s credit union is enjoying big success with EMV compliant cards. Meanwhile, a new international card crime wave puts more pressure on U.S. banks to offer chip-and-PIN cards, which most of the world considers more secure than magnetic stripe.

Despite declining nonperforming assets, Severn Bancorp Inc. in Annapolis, Md., boosted its loan-loss reserves by $3 million in the second quarter.

James Grant discusses shinplasters and the roots of today's moral hazards.

Two New England thrifts have beefed up their commercial lending operations by hiring teams of bankers from recently acquired banks.

Richard Berner, a counselor to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, told members of a House Financial Services subcommittee that the new Office of Financial Research is "working diligently to satisfy its statutory mandates and mission."

Warren, now leading the formation of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, said while the new regulator reserves the right to halt marketing of financial services that are not consumer-friendly, there is no need for such a prohibition from the outset.

Didn't banks learn from the savings and loan crisis in the early 1990s?

ECB Bancorp in Englehard, N.C., announced after the market closed Thursday that it is buying seven branches and $195 million of deposits in North Carolina from Hampton Roads Bancshares Inc. of Norfolk, Va.

Financial Plus Credit Union this week became the first company in the country to sign on to use FiSync, Dwolla's integration tool that shortens the process of linking accounts with the alternative payment provider from days to seconds.

DCB Financial Corp. in Lewis Center, Ohio, is closing a quarter of its branches and cutting 18% of its workforce in the next 90 days, according to a news report.

Shares of Lakeland Bancorp Inc. fell nearly 8% Thursday after the Oak Ridge, N.J., company reported second-quarter earnings that missed analysts' expectations.

NorthEast Community Bancorp Inc. is ready to make a gutsy move — an aggressive push into Boston that also involves originating its first single-family mortgages in roughly two decades.

Two New England thrifts have beefed up their commercial-lending operations by hiring teams of bankers from recently acquired banks.

First Place Financial Corp. said this week that it has launched an audit of its 2009 results and that it now operating under a cease-and-desist order from the Office of Thrift Supervision.