Unprecedented regulatory demands and competition require banks to continue innovating and diversifying, says Aubrey Patterson, the Tupelo, Miss.-based company's longtime CEO, in a wide-ranging interview.

A breakdown of M&A announcements for the week ended August 18.

Seeking to increase its visibility in northern California, American River Bankshares (AMRB) in Sacramento has combined its three separately named banks under the name of its flagship brand.

Western Liberty Bancorp (WLBC) was built to buy — but now it has decided to sell.

BOK Financial in Tulsa, Okla., has acquired the Milestone Group, a boutique investment firm in Denver that caters to high-net-worth families in Colorado and Nebraska.

FICO announced a plan to acquire Adeptra Ltd. for an all-cash purchase price of $115 million.

Collection agency Capital Recovery Systems has collected nearly $80,000 in unpaid parking fines in one Indiana city so far this year.

In Global Finance's annual list of the world's 50 safest banks, European banks, both inside and outside the eurozone, garnered the most slots with 20. In contrast, only five American institutions made the cut.

The Treasury Department plans next week to auction preferred shares in five banks that received a combined $84 million from the Troubled Asset Relief Program.

Spirit of Texas Bank SSB in College Station said Friday that it is buying the $77 million-asset Oasis Bank in Houston.

Mutual thrifts looking to convert to publicly traded companies run the risk of increased pressure from activist investors. While the conversion process alone makes it easier for dissidents to accumulate shares, some observers say mutuals are also suffering from lax enforcement of rules designed to protect them.

Sabal Financial, a Newport Beach, Calif., firm that invests in distressed assets, has acquired $69 million of loans from BB&T (BBT) of Winston-Salem, N.C.

If very different lines of business are walled off from one another, conflicts of interest and risk can be mitigated without losing any of the benefits of one-stop banking.

Eight months after abandoning plans to sell itself, BankUnited (BKU) in Miami Lakes, Fla., is once again weighing offers from potential buyers, the New York Post reported Friday.

It took the Denver company nearly a year to complete its purchase of a rival twice its size. The deal, which required raising capital to buffer against the seller's credit issues and complete a Tarp repayment, illustrates the difficulty of making small but ambitious acquisitions.

The troubled Royal Bank of Scotland is reluctant to sell its profitable Citizens Financial Group unit in the U.S., so investment bankers and others are urging it to sell its branches in two markets, Chicago and Detroit, where it is a relatively minor player.

Old National Bancorp (ONB) in Evansville, Ind., will sell or close 27 branches as part of ongoing efforts to cut costs.

Automobile finance firm Global Lending Services has acquired subprime auto loan originator, Resurgent Auto Finance, and has secured fresh capital for growth.

Aspiring bank buyers including Scott Custer of Piedmont Community Bank Holdings believe that proposed capital rules could reduce pricing and premiums for sellers.

Beltway politics is hurting bank M&A, consumer confidence — but it's also time for bankers to stop opposing Dodd-Frank, says the former Obama chief of staff.