Umpqua CEO Raymond Davis expects banks to focus on customer service and building smaller branches in the years to come.

S&T Bancorp in Indiana, Pa., has appointed a new chairman.

Two bank deals, one in New Jersey and the other in California, have won regulatory approval and are nearing completion.

JPMorgan Chase (JPM) Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon won majority support from investors to keep his chairman title in preliminary voting ahead of today's shareholder meeting, according to two people with knowledge of the tallies.

Like Jamie Dimon, a number of bank leaders have been in fights to keep their chairmanships from being lopped off in recent years. Many lost, and a few survived—but it's rarely pretty.

Mark Jaindl, a Pennsylvania banker, fell less than 100,000 short of shaking up the board at the parent of Home Savings Bank.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid plans to hold a long-awaited vote later this week on the confirmation of Richard Cordray as director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. With the opposition GOP planning to block the nomination, the move is a rehash of past battles and a sign that politics is once again trumping pragmatism in bank policymaking, argues Washington Bureau Chief Rob Blackwell. Ironically, the Republican's opposition will keep the CFPB focused largely on banks, rather than on their nonbank rivals, and could end up doing their banker friends more harm than good.

Ohio Valley Bank in Gallipolis has joined the Federal Reserve System.

Wintrust Financial in Rosemont, Ill., has retooled the ranks at its Wheaton Bank & Trust.

Many merchants are still wary about accepting bitcoins, but new vendor partnerships and a maturation of the companies that handle bitcoin exchanges address some of the virtual currency's riskier aspects.

Organic growth, dealmaking and innovation are taking a backseat to compliance, bank executives told KPMG in a new survey.

Strong demand for new cars has boosted consumer borrowing to its highest level since 2008, according to a new report from Equifax.

The activist investor claims that D.F. King failed to turn in a master ballot, causing his board candidate to lose an election.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency should require the government-sponsored enterprises to purchase loans with "deeper levels of credit enhancement (via mortgage insurance, lender recourse or capital market investors) in exchange for bona fide reductions in guarantee fees and other loan level charges," the Mortgage Bankers Association said in a new white paper released Monday.

Technology has dramatically changed the way people bank, but many banks areresponding by closing and opening branches rather than arming themselves with data that could make existing branches more efficient.

While many still see Bitcoin as an unrealistic payment method, venture capitalists say there are clear use cases for the decentralized cryptocurrency in micropayments, international remittance and charity.

The $208 million-asset bank has filed an application for the change with regulators, it said last week. Executives wanted to get away from the geographically limiting name, though they plan to keep the bank's headquarters in Lowell.

Citigroup (NYSE:C) is replacing Sanjiv Das, the chief executive of its mortgage unit, with private bank head Jane Fraser.

The best-connected bankers in town combine heartfelt community involvement with hard-headed pragmatism about the importance of personal relationships when doing business. American Banker Magazine Editor Heather Landy discusses what others can learn from their examples.

Huntington Bancshares in Columbus, Ohio, has introduced a new MasterCard for business clients as it seeks to expand its card business.