Doral Financial suffered another setback as a Puerto Rican court ruled that the company is not entitled to a $230 million refund tied to overpaid taxes.

The Massachusetts senator recently argued that community banks have little need for regulatory relief. But a closer look at recent FDIC data shows that the health of small banks has taken a turn for the worse in the aftermath of Dodd-Frank.

F&T Financial Services in Porterville, Calif., has agreed to buy Pan American Bank in Los Angeles.

OceanFirst Financial in Toms River, N.J., has agreed to buy Colonial American Bank in Middletown, N.J.

Across the country, community banks are defying the stereotype of small institutions as technological laggards, sometimes introducing useful digital features well ahead of the better-resourced and purportedly savvier big banks.

Small banks don't have the budgets of large-bank competitors, but with nimbleness and creativity they are sometimes first out of the gate with innovative technology, from real-time payments to biometric authentication. We scoured the land for examples of tech-savvy community banks and chose the following 10 standouts.

Getting employees used to using fingerprint scanners was the biggest challenge to Clear Lake Bank's biometrics project.

The acquisitive Bank of North Carolina is using a new iPad and desktop app to help its frontline employees make product recommendations to customers.

The Connecticut lender overhauled its enterprise risk management system after becoming frustrated with inefficient spreadsheets.

A senior regulatory official on Wednesday continued the alarm bell over the brisk growth in auto lending, suggesting that some lending terms could be setting up banks for trouble.

Banks would likely not see an immediate effect from the Federal Communications Commission's open Internet plan, but experts say it could prevent future discriminatory moves by carriers that want to compete more in offering financial services.

Doral Financial's future took another blow after the Puerto Rican company disclosed that its bank is now viewed by regulators as being "critically undercapitalized."

U.S. Century Bank inDoral, Fla., has received regulatory approval for its plan to raise $65 million in capital, according to a news report.

Community Bank System in Syracuse, N.Y., has agreed to buy Oneida Financial in Oneida, N.Y.

Community bank earnings surged 28% to $4.8 billion during the fourth quarter, compared to a 7.3% decline for the industry as a whole, according to a report released Tuesday by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.

Docking Bancshares in Arkansas City, Kan., has agreed to buy RelianzBank in Wichita, Kan.

American Banker’s Index of Banking Activity hit a three-year low in January as falling oil prices and harsh winter weather tamped down borrowing.

Huntington had admired the finance firm for decades, but it was the Ohio company's Midwestern ties that helped it snag the unit from other suitors.

A more efficient, customer-friendly process for small-dollar commercial loan requests is a matter of competitive necessity for most community banks.

BofI Holding in San Diego is planning a new $50 million offering after raising the same amount earlier this year.