Consolidations

The $487 million deal would be OceanFirst's fourth, and largest, acquisition in its home state since 2015.

Higher dividends and more aggressive repurchase programs are bound to attract more investors, which could boost stock prices and prompt more dealmaking, analysts said.

Despite the digitization of transactions, customers still need personal bankers. But financial institutions must adapt to specialize in problem-solving instead of sales.

Thanks to the Federal Reserve's unwinding of post-crisis policies, the next wave of mergers will be driven in part by a drop in deposits.

JPMorgan Chase has some advice for regional banks: A deposit drain is coming, so merge while you can.

The biggest bank M&A agreement of the year might not have happened if the buyer, Sterling Financial, had refused to prove to Astoria Financial that it had thoroughly vetted the deal with regulators.

The number of U.S. banks has fallen by 24% since the end of 2010, a result of mergers, failures and a dearth of de novo activity. Here are the 10 states with the biggest declines as a percentage of total banks headquartered in the state, according to Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. data.

It took several offers for First Busey to seal a deal to buy First Community Financial Partners, and the details in a recent public filing of the back and forth between the two Illinois banks show how patience in merger negotiations is a must.

American Banker readers share their views on the most pressing banking topics of the week. Comments are excerpted from reader response sections of AmericanBanker.com articles and our social media platforms.

Regulators ought to make it easier for smaller institutions to merge, the CEO of the country's largest said Tuesday.