Cape Savings Bank's plan to go public and buy Boardwalk Bancorp Inc. is turning into a nail-biter.

Community Bankshares Inc. in Orangeburg, S.C., said Friday that its Community Resource Bank is shuttering its wholesale mortgage brokerage business.

Republic Bancorp Inc. in Louisville reported Friday that its fourth-quarter net income rose 8% from a year earlier, to $6.4 million.

First Financial Holdings Inc. in Charleston, S.C., said Thursday that earnings for its fiscal 2008 first quarter fell 50%, to $2.9 million, because of costs associated with a new early-retirement program and higher loan-loss reserves.

The $4.5 billion-asset Westamerica Bancorp in San Rafael, Calif., said its fourth-quarter earnings fell 8.9% from a year earlier, to $21.8 million, because of a decline in average earning assets and legal fees connected with litigation against Visa Inc.

In rural parts of central Oregon, it is tough for poor people to get jobs in bigger towns such as Bend or Redmond if they do not have cars to get to work.

Despite a large chargeoff, Lakeland Bancorp Inc.'s strong loan and deposit growth fueled a 57% increase in its fourth-quarter profits from a year earlier, to $3.3 million.

Banks have flocked to northwest Arkansas in recent years because it has been the fastest-growing region of an otherwise slow-growing state.

PFF Bancorp Inc. executives certainly have their hands full these days.

MIDDLE ATLANTIC

Colony Bankcorp Inc. in Fitzgerald, Ga., said its fourth-quarter earnings fell 71% from a year earlier, to $752,000, missing analysts' expectations by a wide margin.

State-chartered banks in South Dakota could soon get the same authority to branch as freely within the state as their national bank counterparts.

Macatawa Bank Corp. in Holland, Mich., lost nearly as much money in the fourth quarter of 2007 as it made in the year-earlier period.

Suffolk Bancorp in Riverhead, N.Y., said Tuesday that fourth-quarter and 2007 earnings were basically flat when compared with the year earlier.

The decision by several large banks to boost automated teller machine fees charged to noncustomers has prompted a widespread reconsideration by community banks of their own ATM policies.

Park National Corp. in Newark, Ohio, announced late Tuesday that it would take a $54 million goodwill impairment charge for the fourth quarter because of the deteriorating loan portfolio of a Florida bank it acquired last year.

FirstFed Financial Corp. in Santa Monica, Calif., said Tuesday that it expects to record a loan-loss provision of $20 million to $23 million for the fourth quarter — up from $4.5 million at Sept. 30 — because of rising customer delinquencies on adjustable-rate mortgages that have recently reset.

West Suburban Bancorp Inc. in Lombard, Ill., has a deal to acquire G.R. Bancorp Ltd., the holding company that owns more than 80% of First National Bank of Grand Ridge in Illinois, for $5.7 million in cash.

Ohio Valley Banc Corp. in Gallipolis announced Monday that it earned $1 million in the fourth quarter of 2007, compared with just $16,000 in the fourth quarter of 2006.

AUSTIN — Compared with past years, 2007 was a slow one for bank mergers and acquisitions in Texas, but when compared with the rest of the country, activity there actually was quite brisk.