With its $105 million deal for Slade's Ferry Bancorp., Independent Bank Corp. in Rockland, Mass., said it is accelerating a plan to expand southeast into the state's fastest-growing region.

Pennsylvania Commerce Bancorp Inc. in Harrisburg on Friday said it had created the position of chief operating officer and named an executive from Sterling Financial Corp. to the role.

FNB Corp.'s deal with Virginia Financial Group Inc. was billed as a merger of equals, but a dissident group says it is an outright sale that significantly shortchanges FNB's shareholders.

A major shareholder of TransCommunity Financial Corp. in Glen Allen, Va., has told the company's board of directors he intends to vote against its pending acquisition by Community Bankers Acquisition Corp. in Alexandria, Va., according to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing Thursday.

Towne Bancorp Inc.'s stock plunged Thursday after the Mesa, Ariz., after the company announced that both its president and chairman had resigned.

Is Center Bancorp Inc. in Union, N.J., trying to back out of its deal to acquire Beacon Trust Co.?

As a correspondent banker, Cliff McCauley has spent nearly half his life working with community banks; now, for the next year, the 51-year-old executive will be leading them in Texas.

East West Bancorp Inc. bought a small bank in California's High Desert region partly to broaden its customer base beyond its traditional Chinese-American clientele in and around Los Angeles.

MIDDLE ATLANTIC

Yielding to pressure from its largest investor, Royal Financial Inc. of Chicago named a new chairman and said that it would consider selling itself.

Cardinal Financial Corp. said a $3.5 million charge related to a disputed escrow transaction could force the $1.8 billion-asset McLean, Va., company to post a third-quarter loss.

Save "No pain, no gain" for the inspirational speeches; the cynical truth is that someone's pain is usually someone else's gain.

Monarch Community Bancorp Inc. in Coldwater, Mich., said Wednesday that a shareholder vote to take the company private was not approved and the stock will continue to be listed on the Nasdaq.

Cardinal Financial Corp. said a $3.5 million charge related to a disputed escrow transaction could force the $1.8 billion-asset McLean, Va., company to post a third-quarter loss.

PSB Group Inc. of Madison Heights, Mich., has increased its loan-loss provision in response to deteriorating credit quality, and it has postponed its plan to go private.

Shares of Security Bank Corp. plummeted 13.5% Friday, to $11.37 a share, a day after the Macon, Ga., reported another spike in nonperforming loans tied to residential construction.

Federal and state banking regulators have ordered American Metro Bank in Chicago to beef up its Bank Secrecy Act compliance procedures.

Bradley E. Rock, the incoming chairman of the American Bankers Association, says he thinks he has come up with a convincing argument for Congress to give banks some regulatory relief: onerous regulations are causing more banks to sell themselves, leaving fewer to serve consumers and creating more opportunities for unscrupulous — and unregulated — companies to fill the void.

Delinquency rates on mortgages in southern Texas were among the highest in the country as of the second quarter, according to The Wall Street Journal.

The deal Commerce Bancorp Inc. announced this week brought a measure of certainty to its own future, but for Pennsylvania Commerce Bancorp Inc. in Harrisburg, the potential ramifications could be rather unsettling.