Before it was sold to First Union Corp. in 1998, the $44 billion-asset CoreStates Financial Corp. of Philadelphia was widely regarded as a top-performing company that despite its size was sincerely committed to relationship banking.

One big reason that banking is a profession instead of just a business is the proliferation of bankers schools.

MELROSE PARK, Ill. - As the chief executive of CNB Bancshares Inc. during the 1990s, James J. Giancola developed a reputation as a buyer, engineering 21 acquisitions in one seven-year stretch and building CNB into one of Indiana's largest banking companies before selling it to Fifth Third Bancorp in 1999.

Shares of superregional banks were downgraded Monday as analysts expressed renewed concern that the group will have a hard time increasing revenues.

The owners of Frontenac Bank in Earth City, Mo., have been in talks to sell Frontenac to the Milwaukee banking company Marshall & Ilsley Corp., according to a published report.

Community Capital Bancshares Inc. of Albany, Ga., reported Monday that its third-quarter earnings rose 11% year over year, to $213,000.

Main Street Trust Inc. of Champaign, Ill., announced Monday that it had agreed to buy Citizens First Financial Corp. of Bloomington, Ill., for $52 million in stock and cash.

California's largest banking trade group, which is hoping to improve relations with a Legislature that it says has not been overly friendly to banks, plans to get closer to the lawmakers.

Old radicals and new crossed paths in Chicago Thursday at the Bankers Association for Finance Trade's annual conference.

Webster Financial Corp. of Waterbury, Conn., announced Thursday that it had appointed Nancy Scirocco as the business development officer of its new not-for-profit commercial banking department.

Central Bancorp Inc. in Somerville, Mass., said legal and professional fees connected to its buyout of a disgruntled shareholder group cut into its fiscal second-quarter profit.

Despite the disruption of business in south Florida as a result of numerous hurricane evacuations, third-quarter net income at TIB Financial Corp. in Naples rose 15%, to $1.3 million.

The Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland has lifted its 4-year-old enforcement order against Citizens Deposit Bank of Vanceburg, Ky.

The American Bankers Association sponsored a telephone educational seminar for bank directors Wednesday, and if some of the questions that were asked are any indication, the directors needed it.

Only one New York credit union has ever converted to a mutual savings bank, but that could change now that Gov. George E. Pataki has signed legislation making it easier for state-chartered credit unions to switch.

Shareholder activism and boardroom maneuvering played a large part in Pointe Financial Corp.'s decision to seek a buyer.

WASHINGTON - When the Independent Community Bankers of America began polling members in 2001 on their top technology concerns, systems security was barely on their radar screens.

I have delivered hundreds of addresses before banking groups over the years, including talks before every state bankers association in the nation. These meetings are where I met the bankers who taught me most of what I have written about in this column, and who told me the stories that added flesh to the bones of banking for my students at Rutgers.

After one of the bitterest hostile takeovers in community banking, observers are questioning whether Central Pacific Financial Corp. of Honolulu can keep its promises and still achieve earnings projections for 2005.