It's easy these days to get caught up in all the bad news and very easy to lose sight of the good. So let's take a moment to focus on some good news.

Abacus Federal Savings Bank in Chinatown scrambled to reopen in the days following the World Trade Center attacks. The exercise resulted in the bank's first disaster-recovery plan.

New York's Arrow Financial and Pennsylvania's First Commonwealth Financial were seeing their insurance revenue grow before they announced agency purchases this week. Prior to 2025, banks were shedding their insurance agencies.

For months, United Bancorporation of Alabama avoided a public clash with two unhappy shareholders. But after the duo demanded seats on the board of directors, the bank finally clapped back.

Two shareholders at United Bancorporation of Alabama say they've been expressing their concerns for years, to no avail. Now they want seats at the table.

The group behind the proposed Georgia Skyline Bank says recapitalizing a 24-year-old Virginia bank offers a faster path to success than a new charter would.

The controlling owner of Santa Fe-based Century Financial Services Corp. wound up in bankruptcy court. Now his 71% stake is on the verge of being sold to an Oklahoma bank.

A new consortium of community banks plans to offer deposit insurance above the FDIC's $250,000 limit. But skeptics say such private-sector efforts have a spotty history.

Equity Bancshares in Wichita, Kansas, had been looking for a way to establish a significant Iowa presence. By acquiring Lincoln Bancorp, which has 16 branches in the state, it's found a way in.

The instant payments company announced a $155 million fundraise and has filed to acquire Transact Bank, which it wants to convert into TabaPay Bank.

First National Bank of Omaha's planned acquisition of InBankshares in Denver comes less than three months after it agreed to acquire a Kansas City-area bank.

The claim that community bankers are somehow being manipulated into supporting changes to the CLARITY Act that would benefit big banks is wrong. The threat to deposits from stablecoin yield is real and dangerous.

Farmers & Merchants Bank of Long Beach took an $85 million loss on the sale of $1 billion worth of municipal bonds. It plans to reinvest the proceeds into higher-yielding loans and investments.

Data suggests that bank-focused shareholder activism in 2026 could exceed last year's activity, as investors continue to seek managerial and operational changes.

Cogent Bank has tapped an industry veteran to lead a new unit focused on ensuring high-net-worth clients can smoothly transfer assets to their heirs.

Community banks stand to gain from the proliferation of stablecoins. Organized programs meant to convince community bankers that stablecoins will drain their deposits are disingenuous.

The Texas Ratio, which tracks banks with underwater loan portfolios, is a reality check for the health of community banking.

There wasn't just one recipe for landing among the top-performing banks with $50 billion or more in assets. There were two — or, in some cases, a mix of both.

Tioga-Franklin Savings Bank's failure is expected to cost the Deposit Insurance Fund $5.5 million. It is the fifth bank to fail this year, the most since 2023.

Brent Reston will serve as BMO Financial Group's inaugural chief digital officer; LCNB Corp. appoints Susan Zaunbrecher to its board; HSBC and Standard Chartered complete a bank-to-bank tokenized deposit transaction on Swift's blockchain-based ledger; and more in this week's banking news roundup