Home BancShares Inc. in Conway, Ark., has agreed to buy 17 branches in a purchase-and-assumption agreement with Park National Corp. in Newark, Ohio.

No one would blame activist investor Richard Lashley if he's muttering, "I told you so." His firm, PL Capital, spent two years before the financial crisis fighting to get on the board at Bancorp Rhode Island and force a sale, to no avail. Now the company is working to complete its sale to Brookline Bancorp.

The U.K. government said it will sell Northern Rock to Virgin Money for £747 million ($1.2 billion) cash, marking a major loss on its investment in the mortgage lender that became a symbol of the financial crisis.

The Treasury and the banking industry would like nothing better than to see more credit unions convert to taxpaying banks. This is hardly going to happen if CUs perceive the OCC as an inhospitable regulator of their mutual form.

NBT Bancorp Inc. in Norwich, N.Y., said late Wednesday that it will acquire Hampshire First Bank in Manchester, N.H.

Regulators are writing massive, complex rules that will be impossible to enforce. Editor at Large Barbara A. Rehm offers an alternative.

U.S. banks may get to spend some excess cash on loans or lines of business that European banks will seek to dump. Still, a cloud hangs over the outlook for bank M&A next year.

Bank of the West in San Francisco is entering the Chicago area by opening a commercial banking office.

Anemic household expenditures this year heightened anxiety that the economy would stall out, but growth in spending on plastic has remained healthy. An increased appetite for big-ticket items among households that are surviving the malaise probably explains much of the phenomenon.

A pair of healthy banks destined to be partners are nearing deadline as investors anxiously wait.

It's time for our regulators to think broadly about what our financial system needs and then take a stand. Simply grinding out Dodd-Frank proposals that no one understands — like the risk-retention proposal and the Volcker Rule release — is not the answer.

Johnson Financial Group Inc. in Racine, Wis., said a decision to close its Cayman Islands branch is related to new laws requiring banks to pay interest on commercial deposit accounts.

Cheviot Financial in Cheviot, Ohio, said Tuesday that it had received regulatory approval for a stock offering tied to its mutual holding company's proposed mutual-to-stock conversion.

Webster Financial Corp. had about as much luck as the big banks in staying ahead of the curve on debit card fees.

It might not be well-reasoned; it might not always be civil; and it might not be fair. But the Occupy Wall Street movement, with its anti-finance bias, is with us and it is real. And unless the economy improves, or some other dramatic event occurs that at the moment seems remote, the reality is that banks are stuck for now in a reputational backwater.

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NBH Holdings Corp. in Boston is the latest bank roll-up group to file for an initial public offering so that its stock can be traded on the open markets.

With a renewed appetite to expand lending, big banks are said to be actively courting borrowers much smaller than their typical midmarket clients. The banks are wooing potential clients with very competitive rates and loan structures, much to the concern of smaller banks.

Royal Bancshares of Pennsylvania Inc. in Narberth said Tuesday that regulators had terminated its July 2009 consent order.

Skip Hageboeck, CEO of City Holding Co., has a clear idea where he wants to go (the I-81 corridor that runs through Virginia) and where he doesn't (the District of Columbia). His pace is slow, one deal every six years, but he's fine with that.