Flushing Financial Corp. chief executive John R. Buran is confident that the market can support yet another online-only bank.

MIDWEST

Ameris Bancorp in Moultrie, Ga., is acquiring the $69 million-asset Islands Community Bank in Beaufort, S.C., for roughly $19 million in cash and stock.

National Mercantile Bancorp in Los Angeles is restating earnings to conform to the accounting requirements for interest rate swaps.

As the lack of affordable property insurance reaches crisis proportions in Florida, bankers there are pressing for legislative solutions.

Fighting a sagging stock price and disappointing earnings, Placer Sierra Bancshares abruptly changed chief executives Tuesday, announcing the immediate retirement of Ronald W. Bachli and the promotion of Frank Mercardante.

El Paso is booming, and its banks are reaping the benefits.

Park National Corp. of Newark, Ohio, has agreed to buy Anderson Bank Co. of Cincinnati for $17.7 million in cash and stock.

Can a town of 348 support more than one bank branch?

Gateway Financial Holdings Inc. in Virginia Beach said it would restate its earnings to correct its accounting for a $150 million interest rate swap agreement.

Dr. Stephen Liu likes to compare the bank he co-founded six years ago to a tomato.

For more information on this data, visit Novantas LLC and Market Rates Insight.

In a prelude to going public, Encore Bank in Houston plans to switch from a federal thrift to a federal bank charter.

Carver Bancorp Inc. said Thursday that earnings for its fiscal first quarter, which ended June 30, fell 4.5% from a year earlier, to $802,000, and diluted earnings per share fell 6%, to 31 cents.

AUSTIN - A drought stretching from the Rio Grande Valley to the top of the Panhandle is frying Texas' cotton, and with about 30% of the crop already lost, experts expect the yield to drop by about half this year.

MIDDLE ATLANTIC

Iberiabank Corp. of Lafayette, La., is wasting no time beefing up in Arkansas.

One of the largest community banking companies in southern California is consolidating banks and switching to a state charter to save costs.

Millennium Bankshares Corp. has reached an apparent cease-fire with a shareholder group that had been agitating for the Reston, Va., company's sale.