While stock sales by large publicly traded banks have been in the spotlight this year, smaller banks have also been on a capital-raising binge.

The failures of $2.7 billion-asset Irwin Union Bank and Trust Co. and $493 million-asset Irwin Union Bank were estimated to cost the Deposit Insurance Fund a total of $850 million.

WASHINGTON — Under pressure from lawmakers not to charge banks another special assessment, Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Chairman Sheila Bair said the agency would consider other alternatives — including some obscure ones — before it decides to act.

James Gutierrez, chief executive of Progress Financial in San Jose, believes he has found the key to reaching unbanked Hispanics — credit.

The failures of $2.7 billion-asset Irwin Union Bank and Trust Co., of Columbus, Ind., and $493 million-asset Irwin Union Bank, of Louisville, Ken., were estimated to cost the Deposit Insurance Fund a total of $850 million.

A survey published last week by the Independent Community Bankers of America said 52% of community banks increased their budgets for payments projects from 2007 to 2009, while only 11% cut spending.

A year after the Troubled Asset Relief Program came along, a growing number of community banks the government spurned are on the brink of failure.

These institutions did not cause the current financial crisis; their woes are the product of failures triggered by the activities of under- and unregulated entities and entities with more leverage and capital markets expertise.

MIDDLE ATLANTIC

As the tally of failed banks continues to grow, so does the list of institutions with similar names that have had to calm down confused customers and business partners.

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Community Trust Financial Corp. in Ruston, La., is expanding into Mississippi. The $1.2 billion-asset company has a deal to buy the $65 million-asset Madison Financial Corp., which would add three branches in the neighboring state.

Michael E. Kelly, the billionaire who built FBOP Corp. by snapping up ailing banks around the country in the 1980s and 1990s, now may have to give up some control of this far-flung empire — or lose all of it.

MB Financial Inc. picked up the pieces of Corus Bank after its seizure Friday and now plans to spend the rest of the year integrating what was a sizable hometown acquisition.

Washington Federal Inc. in Seattle is raising $300 million of capital to support its growth and possibly make acquisitions.

FBOP Corp. of Oak Park, Ill., which is low on capital at five of its nine banks, has a written agreement with regulators requiring it to improve quickly.

The Fed issued a "written agreement" between its Chicago Reserve Bank and FBOP Corp., the nation's largest privately held bank, ordering FBOP to submit a risk-management plan ...

Credit unions may be hard-pressed to fend off new efforts to bring them under the Community Reinvestment Act, in light of another study questioning their commitment to serving the underserved.

Time ran out on Corus Bank late Friday as regulators closed the once-high-flying Chicago condominium lender and sold its operations to another institution.

Wilshire Bancorp Inc. in Los Angeles has filed a shelf registration to raise up to $100 million of capital.