In the two months after Hurricane Katrina, Liberty Bank and Trust Co. in New Orleans lost roughly $40 million of deposits, as customers left town and the steady flow of municipal deposits dried up.

NEW ENGLANDNortheast Bancorp of Lewiston, Maine, has named Marcel Blais to the newly created job of chief operating officer at its $576 million-asset Northeast Bank.

Twenty years ago, the House Ways and Means Committee - then chaired by Illinois Democrat Dan Rostenkowski - briefly mulled a tax on credit unions as part of a package of reforms, only to drop it like a red-hot coal in the face of fierce opposition.

Virginia Financial Group Inc. in Culpeper announced Tuesday that regulators have terminated the formal agreements under which two of its bank subsidiaries had been operating for the last 20 months.

The Banc Corp. in Birmingham, Ala., said that it is changing its name to Superior Bancorp and the name of its subsidiary The Bank to Superior Bank.

Big cities such as Chicago, New York, and Dallas are getting hundreds of new branches every year, but smaller markets - Greeley, Colo., and Bowling Green, Ky., for example - are adding them even faster.

Union Bankshares Corp. of Bowling Green, Va., announced Monday that it is acquiring the $130 million-asset Prosperity Bank and Trust in Springfield, Va., for $36 million in cash.

Sixty credit unions have signed on to a Credit Union National Association program that offers discounted mortgages to families with household income at or below the median for their communities.

The management of Independence Federal Savings Bank of Washington has fended off a shareholder's attempt to take over the thrift, but in the process it lost another seat on the board of directors.

Synovus Financial Corp., whose president and chief executive, Richard Anthony, told investors this summer that it was interested in becoming more acquisitive, announced its second acquisition in as many months Monday.

A week after reporting a nearly 5% drop in third-quarter earnings, Chemical Financial Corp. of Midland, Mich., announced a broad restructuring Friday aimed at cutting costs and boosting profits.

Add Teche Holding Co. of Franklin, La., to the list of Gulf Coast banking companies reporting earnings declines in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

The chief executive and president of F.N.B. Corp. of Hermitage, Pa., said it created a merchant-banking subsidiary because he was tired of turning away business.

National Mercantile Bancorp in Los Angeles said its third-quarter earnings rose 49% from the same quarter a year earlier, to a record $1.3 million.

The $3 billion-asset BancFirst Corp. of Oklahoma City has agreed to acquire the $44 million-asset Park State Bank of Nicoma Park, Okla.

Strong loan growth boosted third-quarter earnings at Bank of Commerce Holdings in Redding, Calif.

After more than a year of scouting for bank acquisitions in California, Colorado, and Texas, Bay View Capital Corp. of San Mateo, Calif., finally found a deal to its liking — in upstate New York.