FirstMerit's Sandra Pierce has two tough jobs. Overseeing the bank's expansion into her home state of Michigan, while leading the financial advisory board picked to rescue its biggest city.

Royal Bank of Scotland is expected to pay roughly $790 million to settle charges by regulators it manipulated a benchmark used to determine the rate at which banks loan to one another.

The $62 million-asset bank, which is owned by 28 Native American tribes, Alaska native corporations and tribal organizations, said Friday that it had hired Tom Ogaard as its president and chief executive, succeeding David Gilman.

The Federal Reserve Board has terminated enforcement actions against Oregon Community Bank & Trust in Oregon, Wis., and Security Financial Bank and its holding company in Durand, Wis.

The president and chief executive of MetroCorp Bancshares (MCBI) in Houston will be taking on an expanded role.

TowneBank in Suffolk, Va., has acquired The Clement Companies, an insurance agency in Greenville, N.C.

Citizens Community Bancorp (CZWI) in Eau Claire, Wisc., has shed its enforcement order with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.

Provident Financial Services (PFS) of Jersey City beat fourth-quarter earnings expectations as it lowered its loan-loss provision and profited from asset sales.

The Justice Department has added a former executive at Countrywide to a lawsuit that accuses Bank of America (BAC) of causing billions of dollars of losses to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

U.S. Bancorp has promoted longtime executive Chris Heman to market president for the state of Washington.

Capital One (COF) announced Friday that longtime chief financial officer Gary Perlin will retire in May and will be succeeded by Stephen Crawford, an outside advisor to the McLean, Va.-based credit-card issuer.

Signature Bank's CEO, Joseph J. DePaolo, answers the skeptics

TD Bank dispenses with the celebrities and builds a new ad campaign around the customer experience.

Consolidation has left one of the nation's most crowded banking markets without a dominant local player. But a handful of hometown banks, including Ed Wehmer's Wintrust Financial along with PrivateBancorp, MB Financial and First Midwest Bancorp, look to be in a good poisiton to pursue the mantle.

The banking industry's appetite for municipal debt has been on the rise, but it's mostly small institutions that are doing the splurging, leaving the typical small bank with a far bigger allocation to munis then the typical large bank.

The drain from construction loan portfolios has slowed, and other categories of commercial property loans have notched gains in recent periods.

James Abbott, recently named the best investor relations professional for mid-cap banks, understands what analysts need to know about Zions because he used to be one of them.

Northfield Bancorp (NFBK) in Woodbridge, N.J. has promoted a senior executive to become its president.

Young hipsters aren't the only ones who want to conduct business with mobile phones. The underserved are also heavy smartphone adopters, and likely to use them for banking and payments.

U.S. banks have shed tens of thousands of jobs in recent years. Still, even those that are pruning staff in some areas are ramping up in specific business lines or markets to generate new revenues. Here's a look at who's hiring and where.