Online account access may seem a standard feature of 21st century banking, but many small banks still see no need to offer it.

Nara Bancorp Inc.'s stock fell nearly 9% Friday, a day after the Los Angeles company disclosed that it would be forbidden from paying dividends without approval from regulators.

Two weeks after nearly two-dozen Comerica Inc. employees in California defected to it, Commercial Capital Bancorp Inc. of Irvine, Calif., has been barred from soliciting Comerica's customers or hiring more of its employees.

Competition is fierce among Asian-American banking companies in California, so a number of them are stepping up expansion efforts in other markets with sizable Asian-American communities.

Capitol Federal Financial of Topeka, Kan., announced Thursday that it had earned $16.2 million in the quarter that ended June 30, 70% more than a year earlier.

Provident Bank in Montebello, N.Y., is committing $26 million to reviving three decaying industrial cities in what is otherwise New York’s fastest-growing county.

Center Financial Corp. in Los Angeles said Thursday that it would restate prior years' earnings because of accounting errors.

NEW ENGLAND

First Federal Bankshares Inc. of Sioux City, Iowa, said its plunged 85% from the year earlier in the June quarter, to $172,000.

Few things irk bank customers as much as getting stuck in a teller line behind someone depositing or withdrawing a lot of cash.

Pacific Global Bank always has served mainly Chinese immigrants, but now, like other narrowly directed banks, it is broadening its scope to accelerate growth.

As part of a broad effort to remake the company, KeyCorp unveiled a reorganization of its community banking unit, renamed it, and said it is searching for a banker to head up the division.

A year ago many community banks were touting how they had adeptly lowered funding costs by deemphasizing certificates of deposit and attracting lower-cost transactional deposits.

Nearly everyone who worked for Columbia Vista Corp., a Vancouver, Wash., sawmill operator, was a renter in 2003, when HomeStreet Bank in Seattle helped it set up a mortgage program.

Midwest Bank Holdings Inc. of Melrose Park, Ill., plans to offer 2.5 million shares of common stock and use the proceeds to boost capital and fund expansion in the Chicago area.

Encouraged by a six-month pilot program, next month the Treasury Department will begin a nationwide push for Social Security recipients to use direct deposit.

When Bank of America Corp. acquired FleetBoston Financial Corp. last year, Eastern Bank Corp. in Boston figured it would attract a fair amount of runoff business - but it never expected that its new customers would include other community banks.

Though there is no evidence that any of New Jersey’s 20 state-chartered credit unions are interested in becoming thrifts, a lawmaker there is set to unveil legislation that would allow them to do so anyway.

EFC Bancorp Inc. of Elgin, Ill., said its second-quarter net income rose 15%, to $1.8 million, and cited an increase in interest-earning assets and higher fee income.