The $128 million acquisition will provide First Financial with its first branches in Kentucky and Tennessee.

Cashierless tech startup Standard Cognition has acquired the robotic mapping startup, Explorer.ai, to accelerate the rollout of its autonomous checkout solutions to retailers.

River Road Financial has agreed to buy Mississippi River Bank in a deal that will bring in a new CEO.

Santander taps JPMorgan Chase exec Colleen Canny to lead retail network; can Trump actually fire Fed's Powell?; will 2019 bring long-awaited reform of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac?; and more from the past two week's most-read stories.

Earthport Plc investors, who saw their shares drop 70 percent in three years as the payments firm lost customers and management, now have an offer to cash out with a 300 percent premium. But not all of them are happy about it.

Slumping stock prices may force banks to press pause, but the need for low-cost deposits and scale could provide a spark later this year.

An “emergency merger” with the troubled Progressive Credit Union gives PenFed — already the nation’s third-largest credit union — the ability to welcome any potential member nationwide.

An “emergency merger” with troubled Progressive Credit Union gives PenFed – already the nation’s third-largest credit union – the ability to welcome any potential member nationwide.

The Pennsylvania company has agreed to buy Forney Financial Solutions.

Bob Mahoney, CEO of Belmont Savings, called Jack Barnes after People's United agreed to buy a Connecticut bank. The banks announced their own merger agreement five months later.

Chartway Federal Credit Union now has roughly $2.2 billion in assets and more than 190,000 members.

A smooth integration of Access National could allow John Asbury, CEO of Union Bankshares, to move a step closer to building a regional franchise that stretches from Baltimore to Hampton Roads.

New CEO John Turner hasn't fully laid out his vision for the future, but it clearly will involve hiring specialized lenders, balancing labor-saving AI with old-fashioned relationship building, and more streamlining.

James McLemore, one of our community bankers to watch in 2019, has more energy loans to purge and must exit the Small Business Lending fund and a BSA-related enforcement action.

HarborOne Bancorp — led by James Blake, one of our five community bankers to watch in 2019 — is a former credit union that recently made its first bank acquisition and has Boston and other markets in its sights.

Visa has a deal to acquire the London-based bank payments provider Earthport for 198 million pounds ($250.6 million U.S.), pending approval from Earthport's shareholders.

The pressure is on CEO Christopher Myers, one of our community bankers to watch, to make the most of CVB Financial's biggest acquisition to date.

Cadence has upped the exchange ratio by 10%, a move made necessary by the 40% decline in its stock price since the deal was announced in May.

On the surface, Ant Financial's reported discussions to acquire U.K.-based WorldFirst demonstrate a savvy business move to establish itself beyond the substantial market it controls in China. It also shows how far the Chinese payments giant is willing to go to resist the headwinds of U.S. policy.

While these five bankers made headlines this year, not all of them did so for good reasons.