Now its patience and determination appear to be paying off. Last Friday Blue Ridge's CertusBank subsidiary got a lot bigger when it received regulatory approval to acquire two failed Georgia banks from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.

Struggling Carver Bancorp is going on the offensive in its effort to fix its balance sheet and return to profitability, adding the newly created position of president and chief operating officer.

Senate Republicans are urging the House to use a procedural maneuver to block President Obama's recess appointment powers for the remainder of his term.

Though federally insured thrifts are making money again after bearing the brunt of the housing bust, their profits have now fallen in four of the last five quarters.

If the Fed rule goes into effect, fraud costs will be funded not by interchange revenue or by retailers, but by consumers and the community banks.

Capitol Bancorp has struck a deal to sell yet another one of its bank units. AmericanWest Bank in Spokane, Wash., will buy Bank of the Northwest for $17 million in cash.

Bank of America Corp. is teaming up with community development lenders to make older commercial buildings more energy efficient.

Private Bancorp Inc. in Chicago has named James Guyette as the second chairman in the company's 20-year history.

Wescom Credit Union of Pasadena, Calif., said Wednesday that its Wescom Resources Group has signed with PayPal Inc. to offer person-to-person payment services to credit unions.

In its deal for Hartford's Florida bank unit, CenterState was inventive in finding a way to grow on the cheap without having to worry about all the strings that come with failed-bank deals.

New American Bankers Association chief Frank Keating is a delegator who relishes political networking. In other words, he's nothing like Ed Yingling, the group's former CEO, who could pretty much do anyone's job there and was happy to leave the glad-handing to others.

The Federal Reserve on Tuesday announced that it had reached a written agreement with BW Bancorp in Ely, Minn.

For a growing group of acquisition-minded community banks, fee-based businesses are looking like a more attractive way to bolster revenue and the bottom line than are traditional bank deals these days.

First Community Bancshares Inc. in Bluefield, Va., appears poised to make acquisitions after raising $19 million in fresh capital.

Battered by defaults on real estate loans, FNB United Corp. of Asheboro, N.C. reported a loss of nearly $45 million in the first quarter and says that it is likely to fail if a previously announced recapitalization plan falls through.

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SCB Bank in Shelbyville, Ind., is running low on capital after management opted to set aside more than $11 million to cover problem loans dating to the tenure of its former chief executive.

Given the rocky results of past couplings, rival brokerages and observers will be closely watching Sterne Agee & Leach's acquisition of an unidentified bank.

Two struggling community banks — Waccamaw Bancshares Inc. in Whiteville, N.C., and First Mariner Bancorp in Baltimore — have received letters from the Nasdaq Stock Market warning that their stocks could be removed from the exchange for failing to meet basic listing requirements.

California Attorney General Kamala Harris is creating a task force aimed at cracking down on mortgage fraud in the country's largest state, according to a report in the Los Angeles Times.