When San Francisco was establishing a program three years ago to move unbanked consumers into the financial mainstream, banks and credit unions signed on because "it was a good political opportunity to generate good will," said Matt Fellowes, an advocate for the unbanked who advised city officials.

TierOne Corp. of Lincoln, Neb., has entered into a supervisory agreement with its regulator that calls for the company to strengthen its loan policies and keep an elevated level of capital.

New England Bancshares Inc. in Enfield, Conn., has agreed to buy the struggling Apple Valley Bank and Trust Co. in Cheshire, Conn., for $7.3 million in cash and stock.

Howard Milstein, the chairman and chief executive of New York Private Bank and Trust Corp., does not see patience as a virtue.

W.L. Ross & Co. is not involved in a venture to buy struggling BankUnited Financial Corp., a principal at the private-equity firm said Thursday.

In her role as the chairman of the Independent Community Bankers of America, Cynthia Blankenship has been pressing the Treasury Department for months to come up with a plan quickly to allow community banks structured as S corporations to receive direct injections of government capital.

Simmons First National Corp. in Pine Bluff, Ark., said Thursday that its fourth-quarter earnings fell 9% from a year earlier, to $5.6 million.

MIDWEST

Shares of F.N.B. Corp. fell sharply Wednesday, after the Hermitage, Pa., company warned that it expects to report a fourth-quarter loss of between $17 million and $21 million.

Millennium Bankshares Corp. in Reston, Va., said Wednesday that Richard I. Linhart, who took the helm at the struggling company 18 months ago to help revive it, had resigned and would leave this month for personal reasons.

However well intended, a new Federal Reserve Board program to spur Small Business Administration lending is unlikely to have much impact as it is designed now, industry insiders say.

Old National Bancorp in Evansville, Ind., said Tuesday that it expects to report its fourth-quarter earnings fell well short of its estimates, as a result of a spike in problem loans and losses related to a check fraud scheme.

After months of waiting for their turn, Subchapter S corporations will get their chance to apply for capital infusions from the Treasury Department's Troubled Asset Relief Program.

FirstFed Financial Corp., a Los Angeles thrift company battered by losses on option adjustable-rate mortgages, is taking the seemingly counterintuitive step of spending its capital to buy back debt — and may be setting an industry trend in the process.

UCBH Holdings Inc. in San Francisco has hired Doreen Woo Ho, a Wells Fargo & Co. executive, to fill the newly created position of president of community banking.

Heartland Financial USA Inc. of Dubuque, Iowa, said it expects to post a loss of $2 million to $3 million for the fourth quarter, as a result of a spike in problem loans in Arizona, Colorado, and Montana.

Anchor BanCorp in Madison, Wis., said it has won approval to participate in the Treasury Department's Capital Purchase Program and is slated to receive $110 million.