Establishing an active dialogue with major shareholders can help banks get ahead of activist campaigns, according to Josh Hinkel, a partner with Bain & Co.

Summit Financial Group in Moorefield, W.Va., has agreed to buy Highland County Bankshares in Monterey, Va., for $21.8 million in cash. The deal is expected to close early in the third quarter.

Focusing on customer experience and building the best products will mean nothing to your company's bottom line if your bank fails to cultivate a positive culture.

A Malvern Bancorp director has resigned following a disagreement over one of the Paoli, Pa., company's clients.

Univest Corp. of Pennsylvania was negotiating to buy Fox Chase Bancorp when its stock plummeted in August. The decline prompted Fox Chase to seek other offers, while forcing Univest to adjust its proposal to prop up the deal value.

First Federal Bank of Kansas City has agreed to a $2.8 million settlement with the Department of Housing and Urban Development to resolve allegations of redlining in African-American neighborhoods.

Comerica in Dallas is warning that its loan-loss provision this quarter will be larger than previously estimated because of falling oil prices.

Benjamin Bochnowski will be named chief executive of both the holding company and the $865 million-asset Peoples Bank at the bank's April 28 annual meeting.

Unity Bancorp of Clinton, N.J., has repurchased $5 million of subordinated debt it issued before the financial crisis.

Bankers in the Bakken Shale region of Montana and North Dakota are keeping an eye on exposure to hotels, apartments and retail space as economic slowdowns occur in energy-producing markets. Bankers in the Marcellus Shale region are also on alert, though there might be less exposure since that region had not yet had a development boom.

There are good, bad and ugly stories about how marijuana entrepreneurs deal with taxes and other financial management issues while having little access to banking services.

Many of the presidential candidates have backed steps to lighten community banks' burden, but we don't need to count on grandiose stump speeches and campaign pledges to make a difference.

Poage Bankshares in Ashland, Ky., has promoted Thomas Burnette to chairman of the boards of the company and its Town Square Bank subsidiary.

The banking industry's rate of expansion hit a seasonal wall in January, leading to the weakest reading for the Index of Banking Activity since its inception in 2012. While January has consistently yielded some of the softest readings in the IBA, a relatively mild winter in the Northeast (a stark contrast to the previous two winters) puts the loss of momentum in a different light from those in recent years. Index components that track loan applications and loan approvals retreated below 50 in January on both the consumer and commercial sides of the business, marking the first time that those indicators simultaneously signaled a contraction in business activity. Most of the components that monitor trends in credit quality have remained positive, although respondents did indicate that delinquency trends in consumer lending had turned somewhat negative in January. Survey respondents also continued to report generally favorable trends in the pricing environment for new loans. Trends in other areas of business tracked by the IBA remained largely intact: The components that monitor the generation of new transaction accounts, the overall level of commercial and consumer loans outstanding, and local business and real estate conditions in the markets where respondents do business all remained above 50, pointing to ongoing improvements in each of those banking-activity metrics.

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Buying and selling branches is routine for a lot of banks, but it's big news at First National Bank of Dwight in Illinois.

The Houston-based institution plans to build profit into the repayment agreement for a loan, with profit replacing interest, under the model of other Muslim-based lenders.

Pacific Mercantile Bank in Costa Mesa, Calif., announced four executive promotions Friday.

Texas has had a fair share of M&A since the financial crisis, but deal volume has declined since oil prices began to plummet in late 2014. Uncertainty over sellers' exposure and depressed stock prices for aspiring buyers are largely to blame.