MIDWEST

In leading a 14-bank syndicate that will provide a $15 million line of credit to CSX Corp., a minority-owned Atlanta bank hopes to capture a larger piece of the railroad giant's business.

Bankers who are not involved in international banking think of it as a glamour business. You fly across the ocean first-class, and when you arrive you are put up at the best hotels, eat at the best restaurants, and meet the cream of the business community.

Bank Holdings Inc. has found a relatively simple way to expand into California.

Perhaps encouraged by the prices Florida banks are fetching these days, Bay Financial Savings Bank in Tampa has put itself up for sale.

Ongoing budget problems have forced the Small Business Administration over the past year to eliminate funding for women's business centers, consolidate several regional offices, and even briefly shut down its flagship 7(a) lending program.

AgStar Financial Services is willing to top Rabobank Group's bid for Farm Credit Services of America by $50 million. But the question remains, is it able?

Brian L. McDonnell, who has run Navy Federal Credit Union, the world's largest credit union, for the past nine years, will retire Dec. 31.

A California subprime auto lender said Friday that it is unloading the last of its deposits and that it will rely on the capital markets to fund its lending.

Crescent Banking Co. of Jasper, Ga., has agreed to buy the $66 million-asset Futurus Financial Services Inc. of Alpharetta, Ga., for $10 million.

A trade group representing check cashers says it is getting ready to introduce an interest-bearing, federally insured deposit account that would be linked to existing prepaid debit cards popular with the unbanked and low-income consumers.

West Coast Bank is one of a handful of banks making it more affordable for mom-and-pop coffee shops, restaurants, and hardware stores to sell gift cards.

Old National Bancorp of Evansville, Ind., said Thursday that it had hired the chief executive of KeyCorp's McDonald Investments Inc. as its own CEO.

The Monday morning meeting at Charlotte State Bank in Port Charlotte, Fla., was far from typical this week, according to the bank's president, Charles G. Brown 3d.

A 3-year-old pilot program by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency that lets well-capitalized community banks exceed per-borrower lending limits is being extended for another three years.

Nearly three weeks after the Dutch giant Rabobank Group announced a blockbuster deal to acquire Farm Credit Services of America in Omaha, another Farm Credit System lender has made a counteroffer.

MIDDLE ATLANTIC

Banks in Texas and at least three nearby states are reporting a rash of thefts in which customers unwittingly make deposits into fake boxes placed over night deposit boxes.

I remember telling the CEO of U.S. Trust Co. in New York that I was jealous of his job.