Financial institutions

Bank M&A started off with a bang this year, with eight of the 10 biggest deals taking place in the first six months. North Carolina and Florida accounted for six deals on the list.

Davis, who stepped down as CEO a year ago, will retire as the company's chairman and as an employee at the end of 2017. Umpqua will then become one of the few publicly traded banking companies with a female chair.

The $50 billion threshold replaced by a formula, but bill must be reconciled with Senate version; Fed, FDIC say the eight big banks still have work to do.

Despite increasing bipartisan support to remove asset cutoffs for "systemically important financial institutions," Congress will likely settle for an asset threshold increase.

A House bill would deregulate both domestic and foreign banks that control trillions of dollars of combined assets, reducing financial stability and tying the hands of regulators to reapply heightened standards in the future.

The purchase will significantly increase Hancock's assets under management and administration.

The number of deals, overall dollar volume and premiums are on pace to top those from a year earlier, giving hope that even more consolidation will take place in 2018.

The Silicon Valley payment processor is firing back at critics who say its bid for a bank charter would open the door to similar gambits by tech giants. Community activists, meanwhile, seem to be coming around to the idea of Square opening a bank.

The holding company structure makes sense for large banks with complex business models and small banks looking to bulk up through acquisitions. But for a large swath of banks in the middle, the benefits are harder to spot.

A bull market and investor appetite for bank stocks are spurring more mutuals to consider partial conversions.

John Turner, the head of the Birmingham, Ala., company's corporate banking group, takes over the president's title from Chairman and CEO Grayson Hall.

Rather than forming a consortium of peers to investigate blockchain technology, as many banks have done, one of the world's largest asset managers is acting on its own.

A group has filed an application for form a bank in Birmingham, a city with a large pool of bankers and a steadily growing economy.

The company has agreed to buy the operations of Veterans Mortgage in Salt Lake City.

OneUnited is trimming branches and expanding digital offerings as it builds its brand as a backer of social justice that develops innovative products such as a Black-Lives-Matter-themed debit card.

The five-year window on HSBC's deferred prosecution agreement connected to a money laundering case expires; profile says outgoing Fed Chairman Janet Yellen has become "a pop culture phenomenon."

The Los Angeles company will sell $1.6 billion in loans, largely tied to technology and health care, by the end of this year.

The proposed CommerceOne Bank in Birmingham, Ala., would be run by former executives at First Partners Bank, which was sold earlier this year.

Howard Bank’s Mary Ann Scully brings hometown banking back to the Charm City; Blythe Masters is a candidate to lead the London Stock Exchange; law professor Tamar Frankel is still shaking up Wall Street, even at 92.

Fifth Third last bought a bank in 2008, but CEO Greg Carmichael says "strategic bank M&A absolutely makes sense," and the Cincinnati bank is poised to clear up a blot on its regulatory record that blocked dealmaking.