First National Bank of Omaha next year will launch three cobranded credit card programs, Steve Eulie, the president of First National's First BankCard credit card division, said.

Webster Financial Corp. in Waterbury, Conn., has notified investors that it is considering raising more capital for the purpose investing in new business lines, bolstering its capital levels and perhaps making acquisitions.

Shares of Republic First Bancorp Inc. soared Wednesday after the Philadelphia company announced that it had sold $59 million of mostly problem real estate loans to a single investor.

Ohio thrift Cheviot Financial, in the process converting to 100% stock-owned company, is giving initial subscribers to its public offering the option to buy up more shares.

Bank of America Corp. sold $700 million in credit card assets to U.S. Bancorp on Wednesday, in the struggling Charlotte company's latest effort to slim down.

Royal Bank of Scotland Group PLC has agreed to sell part of a portfolio of its U.K. commercial-real-estate loans to Blackstone Group LP after negotiating financing for the deal, a process drawn out over five months because of the deterioration in funding conditions, a person familiar with the situation told Dow Jones Newswires late Tuesday.

In what would be its first acquisition since 2007, Sandy Spring Bancorp Inc. in Olney, Md., announced late Tuesday that it is buying CommerceFirst Bancorp Inc. for $25.4 million in cash and stock.

After several years of bank merger activity trending down, there are signs that the activity level may revive. As this subject may not have been a front burner topic for bankers in recent years, it is useful to consider how changes in the last few years have altered certain strategic priorities for considering mergers.

SCBT's planned acquisition of Peoples Bancorp. in South Carolina is being described as small, safe and strategic. Analysts believe most M&A next year will follow a similar blueprint.

First United Bancorp Inc. in Boca Raton, Fla., is unloading three of the seven western Florida branches it inherited when it acquired the failed Old Harbor Bank in Clearwater in October.

SCBT Financial Corp. in Columbia, S.C., announced Tuesday morning that it is buying the $546 million-asset Peoples Bancorporation Inc. in Easley, S.C., for $28 million in stock.

JPMorgan Chase & Co. Inc. finished No. 1 in a ranking of global investment banks by revenue in 2011, published by Dealogic Tuesday.

WASHINGTON — The Federal Reserve on Monday approved PNC Financial Services Group Inc.'s plan to acquire Royal Bank of Canada's U.S. retail-banking unit.

Talmer Bancorp Inc. in Troy, Mich., said Monday that it had completed its acquisition of Lake Shore Wisconsin Corp. in Glenwood City.

Late last year, several ailing banks landed new equity and several hit the ground running in 2011. Still, analysts caution that some recaps could hit the wall in 2012.

A panel of Wall Street banking experts met recently to discuss how community banks can best navigate through an uncertain year ahead.

BankUnited Inc. in Miami Lakes, Fla., opened three new branches on both Florida coasts Monday and now has opened a dozen branches in its home state since Nov. 7.

Wells Fargo & Co. will expand its asset-based lending business into the United Kingdom by acquiring a lending arm of the Bank of Ireland.

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — The National Credit Union Administration announced this morning it liquidated Birmingham Financial FCU, a $1.3 million community development credit union it has run under conservatorship since October and assigned the remnants of the year's 15th credit union failure to $113 million eCO Credit Union of Birmingham.

Analysts believe that private equity has become more skittish about quick returns from banking.