Former Silicon Valley Bank exec Floyd Kessler joins Comerica as executive vice president and chief business control officer; Melissa Holding succeeds Michael Robinson as head of wealth management at Huntington; Goldman Sachs' Alexander Mayer is set to take on a senior position at JPMorgan Chase; and more in this week's banking news roundup.

Banks maintain lists of consulting firms that they trust to help troubled commercial borrowers to fix their businesses. These specialists say they're getting more calls, especially in areas such as multifamily and CRE, from business owners who need help.

Texas Dow Employees Credit Union has agreed to acquire Sabine State Bank and Trust in Louisiana to raise its profile in the oil-and-gas industry. The deal coincides with record levels of U.S. drilling this year.

Consolidation has slowed since the pandemic, but UMB's agreement to buy Heartland Financial — the largest deal in three years — is one of several merger announcements in the past two weeks. Talks among other potential buyers and sellers are said to be picking up.

The Los Angeles-based company, which focuses on Korean Americans, said the acquisition of Territorial Bancorp will allow it to expand its customer base.

The first bank failure of 2024 will result in the Lancaster, Pennsylvania-based Fulton nearly doubling deposits in Philadelphia, a market it has viewed as strategically important for several years.

The combination of the two regional banks is set to create a $64.5 billion-asset company with a 13-state footprint across parts of the Midwest, South and West.

Isabel Casillas Guzman, administrator of the Small Business Administration, wants the agency to get involved in direct lending, a practice that was discontinued during the Clinton administration. Congress has not embraced the idea, to put it mildly.

Extensive partnerships with third-party service providers, fintechs and other partners are the banking equivalent of a supply chain, and bankers need to be clear-eyed about assessing the risk associated with them.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. is arguing that Colorado has the right to establish an interest rate cap that all state-chartered banks must follow. Three industry groups are suing the state in an effort to stop its attempted crackdown.