Two former loan officers at Sterling Financial in Lancaster, Pa., have been sentenced to lengthy prison terms for their role in a multi-year fraud scheme that led to massive losses at Sterling.

Alliance Data Systems (ADS) has agreed to buy credit card accounts from Talbots and to take over the retailer's private-label credit card program.

A breakdown of M&A announcements in the financial services industry for the week ended September 15.

Creating New Hampshire Mutual Bancorp will mean one fewer thrift but allows management the chance to preserve a type of institution that is threatened with extinction.

BNC Bancorp in High Point, N.C., has completed its acquisition of KeySource Financial nearly 10 months after announcing the deal.

Three Ohio credit unions have completed a rare three-institution merger to form Pathways Financial Credit Union.

Flickers of life in the housing market are prompting homebuilders to seek revolving lines of credit from banks for the first time in several years. They are getting them, and money from the debt and equity markets, too.

Citigroup's $4.7 billion pretax writedown of its Morgan Stanley Smith Barney stake probably won't reduce a profit-sharing plan's award for CEO Vikram Pandit that could total $24 million.

Louisiana plans to standardize its collection policies across agencies and centralize other efforts, either through one agency or with a private company.

The Missouri Division of Finance closed the $282.3 million-asset Truman Bank in St. Louis on Friday. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. entered into an agreement with Simmons First National Bank in Pine Bluff, Ark., to buy the bank's assets and assume its $245.7 million in deposits.

Level One Bancorp in Farmington Hills, Mich., is applying its experience working on failed banks to buy and integrate one that is merely struggling. Patrick Fehring, the company's CEO, says that experience integrating failed banks has prepared Level One to buy the struggling Oxford Bank.

The Basel III capital proposals would severely restrict already weak lending at community banks and has to be changed, panelists said at American Banker's Regulatory Symposium. But international politics and legal requirements will make them hard to change, they acknowledged.

Mary Miller, the U.S. Treasury under secretary for domestic finance, praised the Dodd-Frank Act in a speech at American Banker's Regulatory Symposium Friday.

Oriental Financial Group in San Juan, Puerto Rico, is looking to raise $36 million of common equity.

Heritage Financial (HFWA) is buying Northwest Commercial Bank of Lakewood, Wash.

Bank of America (BAC) has agreed to compensate mortgage loan applicants who alleged the bank discriminated against some borrowers who received disability income.

The U.S. banking arm of Bank of Montreal said the cuts will take place at a data center in Sun Prairie and a mortgage underwriting office in Cedarburg.

FirstMerit will have to spend major investor equity to buy struggling Citizens Republic, but its shares are strong enough to afford the deal and the fit would be that good, FirstMerit CEO Paul Greig says.

Level One Bancorp in Farmington Hills, Mich., has found its next growth opportunity with a deal to buy a struggling 128-year-old bank.

Banks will not regain the public's trust with good marketing, PNC chief executive officer James Rohr tells American Banker's Regulatory Symposium.