The FDIC's decision to fund its emergency needs by calling upon banks to prepay future premiums back in 2009 suggests that the line to the Treasury may never be used.

SunTrust is expected to announce Tuesday that it plans to put financial counselors in its branches as part of a pilot program with Operation HOPE, a nonprofit that works to provide financial literacy training to low-income families.

BancorpSouth (BXS) in Tupelo, Miss., will take a $10.9 million charge for an early-retirement program meant to cut costs in the long term — and an additional charge is possible.

The $76 million-asset lender raised the sum from local investors. It began the effort in October and finished at the end of May, its financial advisor, Community Capital Advisors, announced on Monday.

It's been a buoyant year for stocks but not for bank deals. Regulatory uncertainty and a failure of buyers and sellers to come to terms on price continue to stymie activity. American Banker staffers discuss whether the market is getting closer to taking off and why some big investors have been selling.

Overdraft revenue at banks, thrifts and credit unions has stagnated over the last year, according to new research, as the industry absorbs the impact of past regulations and braces for potential future ones.

Regulation should be strong enough to protect investors yet business-minded enough to promote active derivatives, mortgage and other markets, says Judd Gregg, a former New Hampshire lawmaker and new chief executive of the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association.

First National Bank of Talladega has coaxed a banking veteran out of retirement to serve as the Alabama company's president and chief executive.

The nation's largest mutual has been an early adopter, using the Internet to market and originate small-business loans.

American Banker Magazine's recent article on the Small Business Administration's Karen Mills was quite a love-fest. Here's the other side of the story that would be good for the public to hear.

The United States needs a new, 21st-century model for identifying, monitoring and reporting risk at banks. The model must be forward-looking, not backward-looking as the Camels ratings are.

Tech startups are gunning to compete with banks by providing financial services to low-income and other underserved customers. Many of the offerings provide me-too services with limited appeal, however, rather than attractive innovations.

Suffolk Bancorp in Riverhead, N.Y., has been released from a written agreement with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.

Farmers National Banc in Canfield, Ohio is buying an employee-benefits consultant.

AmericanWest Bank in Spokane, Wash., has agreed to buy eight southern California branches from First PacTrust Bancorp in Irvine, Calif.

Enrollment is up at the ABA Stonier Graduate School of Banking as banks return to financial health and executives once again invest in their employees' development.

Kids master fundamentals of banking at Montecito Bank's financial literacy summer program, Fun in the Sun.

Karen Mills, the outgoing head of the Small Business Administration, gets high marks from bankers for cutting red tape, revamping little-used programs, improving outreach, and, most important, convincing lawmakers to raise caps so that banks could make larger loans.

WASHINGTON — Wisconsin suffered its first bank failure in over two years late Friday as regulators closed a small institution in Kenosha and sold off most of its operations.