Over the past year, bankers have been able to sit back and field calls from borrowers eager to take advantage of low rates. Now, with rates rising, many in the industry will likely adopt a more aggressive approach.

Sam Sidhu, whose father is CEO Jay Sidhu, will become president and chief executive of Customers Bank in July.

Peoples Bancorp will pay $292 million for the West Virginia company. It also announced it's buying a leasing company in Vermont.

Bradley Riss is chief commercial officer at Checkout.com, a firm that acts as a payment gateway, acquirer and processor through a single channel, covering cards, passthrough wallets, stored value wallets and alternative payment options such as point of sale credit. It charges a fee based on processing and card payment costs rather than the percentage+ model that most payment API companies charge. The model is designed to make the service customized to different merchants and serve as a base to offer other merchant products.

Six years after unloading its bank unit, the tax preparation chain wants to diversify by launching a digital account targeting low- and moderate-income households. How will it differentiate itself from upstarts like Chime, Varo and Green Dot?

A federal watchdog agency determined that Almena State Bank's push into government-backed loans, supported with high-cost wholesale funding, set it up for collapse when significant credit issues arose.

While many institutions are part of nationwide shared-branch networks, three Southern California credit unions have agreed to share one facility. The arrangement is believed to be the only one of its kind.

Truist Financial's venture capital division led the Series A funding round for Greenwood, a platform aimed at Black and Latino customers. Other investors include Bank of America, Citigroup, Mastercard and Visa.

Complaints to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau jumped 54% to 542,300 in 2020. Concerns about credit reports have long outnumbered those in other categories and jumped significantly as a share of the total from 2019.

Four months into the job, Charles Shaffer has struck a deal for Legacy Bank of Florida and is eyeing more acquisitions. His predecessor, Dennis Hudson III, built Seacoast with more than a dozen buyouts across the Sunshine State.

The Minneapolis company teamed with the fintech Personetics to develop an automated-savings feature on its app that goes beyond most rival offerings by monitoring cash flow and spending to determine safe amounts to set aside.

The $235 million acquisition will bring CEO Jared Wolff's company a trove of cheap deposits and the chance to slash costs without having to significantly change its business model.

The company agreed to buy Legacy Bank of Florida for $102 million.

The agency's plan would strengthen requirements that banks use a minimum amount of their real estate for the business of banking, but three grade groups say banks need flexibility in the pandemic to manage occupancy.

Decentralized finance, in tandem with financial institutions, could create a more efficient, convenient, wider-reaching and more secure experience than traditional finance alone, says FISPAN's Clayton Weir.

In-person branch use will continue, but retail banks should nonetheless double down on building intuitive, easy-to-use mobile experiences that drive customer satisfaction and brand loyalty.

Banc of California, which last bought a bank in 2013, has agreed to pay $235 million in stock for Pacific Mercantile, which is based in Costa Mesa, Calif.

The depositor-owned banks are discouraged from participating in the Emergency Capital Investment Program because they can't issue preferred stock to back loans for underserved communities. It's another reason to overhaul their capital rules, mutuals argue.

Front-line employees yearn to be told they still have a critical role to play, as more customers are seeking in-person help amid the pandemic.

The Florida bank will expand to the east with its pending purchase of Hillsboro Bank.