Buoyed by lower expenses and increased fee income, Meta Financial Group Inc. of Storm Lake, Iowa, said that it earned $3.1 million for its fiscal year first quarter.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development has withdrawn a proposed rule that would have allowed government-backed Farm Credit System lenders to make more home loans.

Banks seem eager to move unwanted assets off the books. Though single-family homes garner most of the headlines, banks are also attempting to sell other types of collateral at bargain-rate prices. In some ways, it looks like a yard sale. Here are a few examples of the assets that banks are peddling online.

Memorial services were held in Charlotte Monday for Thomas Storrs, the former chairman and chief executive of North Carolina National Bank who laid the groundwork for today's Bank of America Corp.

Three months after Forrest Shook resigned as Fentura Financial's chairman, the company said in a regulatory filing that another key executive, CFO Douglas Kelley, is leaving its ranks.

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Hampton Roads Bankshares of Norfolk, Va., announced that it plans to pursue a stock offering next quarter in which it hopes to raise between $54 million and $86 million. Separately, it has named Douglas J. Glenn its president and chief executive.

Greg Gonzales closed two banks last month and a slew of new problem banks could keep him busy this year. In a recent interview, he says his strategy gives struggling banks a reality check, but enough rope as possible to solve their problems.

While small banks already face a mobile banking adoption deficit to their larger competitors, some community institutions are still questioning the channel's safety.

First Virginia Community Bank in Fairfax has raised $6.7 million in capital from old and new investors and intends to use the proceeds to continue its rapid growth.

Cambridge Savings Bank has started a new division to cater to local and regional nonprofit organizations.

OmniAmerican Bancorp in Fort Worth, Texas, said Monday that its fourth-quarter earnings nearly quadrupled from the same period in 2010, to $1.2 million, as declines in loan yields were more than offset by an 18% increase in average balances of earning assets.

Many small banks have never accepted that an exemption from the Durbin amendment will protect them from the measure's roughly 50% cut in debit interchange rates. Earnings at banks with assets of less than $10 billion appear to have been entirely untouched by the cap in the first quarter since its Oct. 1 implementation, however.

The National Credit Union Association said Monday that a federal credit union may set the maturity date for modified or refinanced mortgages beyond the regulatory 40-year maturity limit, as long as the terms of the original loan were no more than 40 years.

New Hampshire Thrift Bancshares Inc. in Newport said Monday that its chief executive, Stephen W. Ensign, is stepping down and that its president and chief operating officer will take over this role.

Highlands Bankshares Inc. in Petersburg, W. Va., is on the lookout for a new chief executive after announcing that C.E. Porter will retire in May.

Centennial Bank in Denver is adding a new branch in Boulder as part of a broad strategy to establish a presence in some of the state's key banking markets.

Bernard M. Trager, the founder of Republic Bank in Louisville and chairman of its holding company, died Friday after a long illness. He was 83.

For the moment, the job of ensuring that the nation's largest banks comply with the terms of last week's mammoth mortgage settlement falls on just one man: Joseph A. Smith, Jr., North Carolina's banking commissioner.

With problem real estate loans continuing to pile up, Western Liberty Bancorp in Las Vegas announced Monday that it lost $2.4 million in the fourth quarter and $14.2 million for the full year.