It took more than a year for First PacTrust, which was new to the M&A game, to get banking regulators to approve its deal for Gateway Bancorp. The deal is scheduled to close in two weeks.

City Holding of West Virginia is buying Community Financial, which had a 120% loan-to-deposit ratio at March 31. The deal allows City Holding solve an issue plaguing many community banks: how to find loans to offset record deposit growth.

Citizens Republic Bancorp Inc. (CRBC), the Michigan lender that has yet to repay a $300 million U.S. government bailout, is soliciting takeover bids from competitors, said three people with knowledge of the matter.

CertusBank has agreed to buy Myers Park Mortgage, a private mortgage company in Charlotte, N.C.

City Holding in Cross Lanes, W.Va., continues to bulk up in Virginia, announcing late Thursday that it is buying Community Financial in Staunton for $26.1 million in stock.

Community Bank System will close five branches in September. Three of the targeted branches are ones that First Niagara acquired from HSBC and then sold to Community Bank in July.

Urban Partnership Bank, a Chicago bank formed to buy ShoreBank's deposits and assets from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. in 2010, has agreed to buy a large branch in Chicago's South Side from Northern Trust (NTRS).

BB&T is eyeing other deals and planning to open more branches in Florida after buying BankAtlantic this week, regional executive Michael Oster says.

Heartland Financial USA (HTLF) is bulking up in Wisconsin with a deal to acquire First Shares in Platteville for roughly $11 million in cash and stock.

ING Group may sell its Canadian online bank, which has $40 billion in assets, and dispose of a smaller U.K. unit as the Dutch company seeks to repay government aid received during the financial crisis.

Resurrecting Glass-Steagall means resurrecting the large, highly leveraged investment banks engaged in high-risk trading for their own accounts.

Debt buyer Portfolio Recovery Associates reported across-the-board records in cash collections, revenue and net income for the second quarter ended June 30.

KeyBank is the latest regional that will start issuing its own cards again in hopes of growing revenue and wallet share.

Add Sterling Bancorp (STL) in New York to the growing list of community banks ramping up in residential lending.

First California Financial Group (FCAL) — under pressure from activist investors to find a buyer — hired Keefe, Bruyette & Woods (KBW) to explore a sale or other strategic options.

New Hampshire Thrift Bancshares (NHTB) has made its first bank deal in nearly five years, agreeing to buy Nashua Bank for roughly $19.4 million.

BB&T CEO Kelly King took a lot of heat for letting a rival beat him out for RBC Bank, but his patient pursuit of the more affordable BankAtlantic instead looks wise in retrospect.

Alive CU, the former Blue Cross credit union known till last month as Healthcare's Cooperative CU, is expanding outside of healthcare facilities with a deal to buy two stand-alone branches from Space Coast CU.

HF Financial (HFFC) has agreed to provide its largest shareholder with confidential information after the investor threatened to run its own candidate for the Sioux Falls, S.D., company's board.

Join the editors of American Banker and the industry's most influential policymakers, lawmakers and executives to discuss the issues that remain at the forefront of the regulatory landscape: CFPB, Volcker Rule, TAG, fair lending enforcement, Basel III and the impact the elections will have on financial institutions.