Bank of Commerce Holdings in Redding, Calif., has beefed up its payroll processing capabilities by acquiring a small payroll firm in its hometown.

Verizon Wireless, AT&T Inc. and T- Mobile USA plan to invest more than $100 million in their joint venture that lets consumers pay for goods with mobile phones, people with knowledge of the project said.

In a widely anticipated move, Bank of America Corp. announced Monday morning that it is selling half of its stake in China Construction Bank to a group of investors for $8.3 billion.

Bank of America Corp. agreed to sell about half its stake in China Construction Bank Corp. for cash proceeds of about $8.3 billion, a deal that further improves the bank's liquidity position and helps it meet regulatory standards.

Two of Greece's largest lenders, Alpha Bank SA and EFG Eurobank Ergasias SA, Monday announced plans for a merger that would create the country's largest bank, in a bid to address mounting problems in the Greek banking sector.

Remember that fuss about the dire danger of having an unknowable but evidently substantial number of banks that are Too Big to Fail? The message was: "Stop that!"

The Federal Reserve Board said Friday it will hold three public hearings on Capital One Financial Corp.'s proposed $9 billion purchase of online bank ING Direct USA.

Under orders from its regulators to boost a key capital ratio, Pacific Mercantile Bancorp in Costa Mesa, Calif., announced that it has already raised $11.2 million of fresh capital and has a deal in place to raise $27.3 million more.

Failure to review vendor contracts when acquiring another bank can lead to extra costs and prolonged conversions.

Old National Bancorp in Evansville, Ind., announced Friday that it is shuttering nine of the 52 branches it inherited when it took over the failed Integra Bank and will move the accounts to nearby offices.

Opportunistic community banks in south Florida have seen a dramatic increase in new customers because of a contraction of banks caused by failures and mergers.

Royal Bank of Canada posted a third-quarter loss on charges related to the sale of its U.S. retail bank, but earnings from continuing operations jumped 13%, reflecting solid volume growth against a backdrop of slowing economic growth.

If only Bank of America's cuts were the end of it.

Freddie Mac purchased $21.7 billion of mortgages from its seller/servicers in July, its worst acquisition month of the year and only about half of what it bought in January.

Warren Buffett's $5 billion public vote of confidence in Bank of America, happily for him, does not require actual confidence.

Twenty years ago I engineered the sale of Security Pacific Bank, at the time the nation's fifth largest bank, to Bank of America. On August 12, 1991, the day the deal was announced BofA's stock closed at $10.00. Today it closed at $7.65 a decline of 23% over the past two decades.

Lydian Private Bank's failure proved to skeptics that the private banking model is a toxic mix for banks.

ACI Worldwide is increasing the cash portion of its unsolicited offer to buy S1 in light of recent stock market volatility, and as the two companies continue to squabble over competing acquisition proposals.

Can they survive? Panelists at a recent American Banker roundtable debate the long-term prospects for community banks.

"The predatory nature of American finance" makes future meltdowns all but inevitable, argues historian Charles Geisst.