BankUnited in Miami Lakes, Fla., has hired Hakim Kassam, a former Wells Fargo banker, to run its small business finance department.

A former chief financial officer at Bank of McKenney in McKenney, Va., has been indicted on two counts of embezzlement.

More lenient capital requirements than expected from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were good news for two legacy private mortgage insurers, but another is facing a bigger deficit than initially thought.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau filed a lawsuit on Monday against an Ohio-based loan administrator and its owner for allegedly deceptively marketing services that claimed to save consumers money on their mortgage while any actual savings were offset by high fees.

Nomura Holdings Inc. and Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc engaged in "enormous" deception in selling defective mortgage-backed securities, a judge ruled following a trial over a trigger to the 2008 financial crisis.

A lot of bankers want on-balance-sheet mortgages declared ultrasafe under federal rules, and Wells Fargo executive Brad Blackwell explains why he thinks it's in their self-interest more than ever to live up to their arguments in favor of such a policy.

The Colorado attorney general's office has sued a retailer for violations of lending and consumer protection laws. The action comes six months after the company agreed to a multimillion-dollar CFPB fine for alleged faulty collection tactics.

Most banks appear to be coping well with the CFPB's ability-to-repay rule for mortgages, but the burden is falling harder on community banks. A new proposal that would allow more small lenders to grant home loans to borrowers with high levels of debt could help.

Banks hurt by the Target data breach two years ago will not be able to block a settlement they consider unfair, a judge ruled Thursday.

A Vermont consumer protection bill that would regulate the rent-to-own industry and temporarily ban lawsuit loan companies from operating in the state passed in the Vermont House on Friday.

First Commonwealth Bank in Indiana, Pa., has agreed to buy First Community Bank in Columbus, Ohio, for about $15 million in cash.

Citigroup Inc., the third-biggest U.S. bank by assets, said the U.S. Justice Department declined to prosecute the bank after a probe into rigging of the London Interbank Offered Rate.

An appeals court ruled Friday that the use of official letterhead from Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine’s office is a violation of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act.

A group of small banks and credit unions could not persuade a judge to block the settlement Target and MasterCard reached last month that would reimburse banks on the card network $19 million for losses related to the retailer's breach.

Flushing Financial in Uniondale, N.Y., has sold three branch properties in Brooklyn, N.Y.

Top-performing community banks have found different ways to provide double-digit returns, despite numerous challenges facing the banking industry.

Looking past standard gauges of return on equity and return on assets, bank investors have wide opinions on what makes a bank a high-performing institution relative to peers.

A number of this year's top-performing banks have been able to ride the highs and lows of the economic cycle to still produce long-term returns to investors.

What makes for a high-performing bank? We take an in-depth look at what drove profitability for the institutions at the top of our annual rankings, all of which are based on three-year average returns on equity. See the list of banks and thrifts with under $2 billion in assets or the mid-tiers with $2 billion to $10 billion of assets. Stay tuned as those with $10 billion to $50 billion of assets are still to come.

Rates are low and compliance costs are rising. But banks with $2 billion or less in assets still have momentum in several key areas, based on data compiled by Capital Performance Group.