Big banks and institutional investors were more generous in granting small-business loans in August, while their smaller competitors turned slightly stingier, according to a Biz2Credit study.

A lack of formal training programs and insufficient financial and career incentives limit the availability of skilled risk managers.

East West Bancorp in Los Angeles has been hit with a nearly $39 million in damages tied to a lawsuit from a borrower.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency is receptive to the idea of Federal Home Loan Bank mergers, according to the agency's director.

BB&T is back the business of buying banks for the first time in several years, even though most of its peers think regulators are opposed to big-bank M&A. BB&T's investments in compliance improvements make its executives feel confident about getting new deals done, CEO Kelly King says.

Customers Bancorp in Wyomissing, Pa., has hired Dawn Melesko to serve as director of social media for BankMobile, the mobile and tablet banking platform it plans to launch in late summer 2014.

SB Financial in Defiance, Ohio, has redeemed $10.3 million in trust-preferred securities, in an effort to lower its interest-related expenses.

Community bankers are launching a last-ditch effort to push the Senate this year to pass more than a dozen bipartisan regulatory relief bills that have already cleared the House with support from both parties.

BB&T has agreed to buy the Bank of Kentucky for $363 million in cash and stock. The acquisition would allow the $188 billion-asset BB&T to expand in the northern Kentucky and Cincinnati region, where the $1.9 billion-asset Bank of Kentucky operates 32 branches.

The Iowa Credit Union Division has placed Louden Depot Community Credit Union in Fairfield, Iowa, into receivership.

National Penn Bancshares in Allentown, Pa., plans to raise $100 million through a debt offering.

The $2.5 billion-asset QCR said in a press release Friday that the new company will include the mortgage staff from its Quad City Bank & Trust.

Banc of California has announced extensive community reinvestment goals as part of its planned purchase of 20 Banco Popular branches in Southern California. The agreement, which appeased a community group that had opposed the sale, shows how much power such organizations wield when it comes to M&A.

Ted Strauss, a Dallas entrepreneur who helped establish two of the city's most-prominent banks, died Friday morning.

Camden Fine at the Independent Community Bankers of America believes entrepreneurial bankers will return to starting new banks in the latter half of this decade as the industry adjusts to the new business conditions and as consolidation creates voids.

Today's hackers are "extremely sophisticated" and banks need to work hard to keep pace with their methods of attack, warns James Sills, who recently left his job as chief information officer for the state of Delaware to become CEO of a small bank in North Carolina.

Bankers criticize credit unions' tax-exempt status because they fear they are losing ground to member-owned financial cooperatives, writes the Credit Union National Association's Bill Hampel.

First Mountain Bank in Big Bear Lake, Calif., is looking to replace a pair of bankers who collectively have more than 80 years of industry experience.

BancorpSouth in Tupelo, Miss., has been hit with a consent order tied to compliance weaknesses tied to the Bank Secrecy Act and the Patriot Act.