The $8 billion-asset subsidiary of Northwest Bancshares (NWBI) said Wednesday it would buy The Bert Company, which operates an employee benefits and property and casualty insurance firm known as The Bert Insurance Group, based in Erie, Pa.

First State Community Bank in Farmington, Mo., which has done several M&A deals in recent years, benefits again as B of A and smaller banks look to streamline their operations.

Willing sellers have pretty much replaced failed banks among targets with less than $1 billion of assets. Volume has perked up in other size classes simultaneously.

State Street, the third-largest custody bank, said Edward Resch will retire next year as chief financial officer after more than a decade in the role.

Ovation Holdings will acquire two branches in southwest Florida from Liberty Bank, as the Iowa thrift seeks to exit Florida.

M&A could leave Chicago with 100 banks in seven years; rural banks in Midwest fetch better prices; and some large banks may have to shrink, say Stephen Nelson and Eugene Katz of D.A. Davidson.

A dedicated line to Ray Davis' Portland, Ore., office is just another retail touch that helps the bank distinguish itself from competitors.

Residential Capital LLC won court approval to sell its mortgage-servicing unit to Ocwen Financial (OCN) for $3 billion after putting off a fight with loan investors and resolving other objections.

Approximately 86 percent of hospital and health system executives said bad debt accounts for more than 2 percent of their total cost of services, according to a new survey.

Scotland-based collection agency and debt buyer Mackenzie Hall Ltd. has been awarded a Consumer Debt Collection Agency of The Year award.

Northfield Bancorp (NFBK), a mutual holding company in Avenel, N.J., is taking the final step in its conversion to a fully public company.

A unit of Heartland Financial USA (HTLF) in Dubuque, Iowa, has completed its acquisition of First Shares in Platteville, Wis., for $10.9 million.

Capital is just not an issue for these banks. All the capital they may ever need is a phone call and wire transfer away.

A breakdown of M&A announcements in the financial services industry for the week ended November 17.

Joe Slavens, the CEO of Northwest Bank & Trust in Iowa, has diversified to cope with weakening loan demand in the Quad Cities. He's got plans for dealing with higher taxes and other community bank challenges.

TSYS in Columbus, Ga., would be able to offer a rival to Square's mobile card reader and tap a new market of small merchants once it completes its acquisition of ProPay.

The growth in hedge funds, private equity firms and other entities outside the regular banking system is leading one global group to call for stricter oversight of non-bank entities.

Ally Financial Inc., the lender majority-owned by the U.S., is in advanced talks to sell some international auto-finance businesses to General Motors Co. for $4 billion, two people with knowledge of the matter said.

WASHINGTON — State regulators in Georgia closed the $125 million-asset Hometown Community Bank in Braselton late Friday, stretching the industry's failure toll this year to 50.

An effort to overhaul commercial bankruptcy laws is in its early stages, and creditors in the syndicated loan market sense a threat to some of their most important tools for guarding collateral.