In the last three months of 2010, banks, credit unions and other lenders made $12 billion of Small Business Administration-backed loans, the most in any quarter in the SBA's history and more than double the volume in any quarter over the last four years.

First Northern Community Bancorp in Dixon, Calif., said Monday that it had exited the Troubled Asset Relief Program after repurchasing a stock warrant from the Treasury Department.

Shares of Anchor BanCorp Wisconsin Inc. have been removed from the Nasdaq exchange and are now trading over the counter.

Cathay General Bancorp in Los Angeles has added a former KPMG consultant to its board.

David Greiner has resigned as president and chief executive of Tri-Valley Bank in San Ramon, Calif., and has been replaced by the bank's chairman, Arnold Grisham.

WASHINGTON — Regulators closed a bank in Louisiana, and another in Iowa, late Friday to bring the year’s failure total to 90.

The Barclays unit in charge of U.S. bank deals has overcome adversity, from the Lehman Brothers collapse in 2008 to the defection of some important talent last year, and worked on some of the notable deals of the year.

Addressing the home mortgage meltdown, Congressman Scott Garrett recently introduced legislation that is, as American Banker put it, "designed to draw the private sector back to the secondary-mortgage market after the troubled GSEs are terminated."

Banks, the FDIC, and insurers are set to fight over whether the vague terms of director & officer liability insurance put insurers on the hook for FDIC claims against failed bank execs.

Regulators will eventually release banks from the penalty box of formal enforcement actions. For now, banks can expect informal agreements to serve as a provisional step to freedom.

In a new paper, Karen Shaw Petrou, a leading financial services analyst, outlines flaws with new capital and liquidity requirements, and offers policymakers a way to simplify the process.

Hampton Roads Bankshares Inc. in Norfolk, Va., has named a special assets executive, Denny P. Cobb, chief credit officer for one of its banking units.

The Treasury Department said Friday it netted $12.21 million from the sale of warrants to buy stock in 17 financial firms, including banks such as Maryland-based Eagle Bancorp Inc. and Indiana-based Horizon Bancorp.

The federal government could avoid many unnecessary bank failures by making targeted preferred equity investments in community banks with a Camels 3 rating.

Shareholders of Susquehanna Bancshares Inc. in Lititz, Pa., and Tower Bancorp Inc. in Harrisburg, Pa., have approved the companies' proposed merger.

Most of the transactions in November have involved the sale of small, closely held banks to much bigger players. The buyers want to spend excess cash and expand on the cheap.

The Federal Reserve has banned a former executive of Security Bank in Tulsa, Okla., from the banking industry.

Stew Leonard Jr., the owner of an eponymous grocery store chain in New York, echoed the groans from today's bank directors.

Some family owned banks have had difficulty transitioning from one generation to the next, and the current economic downturn has made it trickier than ever to transfer control.

Stew Leonard shares his thoughts on customer service, motivating front-line employees, and why he'll never serve on a bank board again.