Citizens Community Bancorp in Eau Claire, Wis., has hired an investment bank to help it explore strategic options.

Private-equity firm GTCR is set to acquire Optimal Blue, a Texas-based mortgage tech firm, and it is planning more deals that would offer the industry ways to strip out further costs.

With the 7(a) program headed for another record year, small banks around the country, including Access National in Reston, Va., are scrambling to add capacity.

South State in South Carolina has agreed to buy Southeastern Bank Financial in Georgia, which is run by Daniel Blanton, the chairman of the American Bankers Association.

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Eastern Virginia Bankshares in Tappahannock, Va., is backing up the moving van as it prepares to relocate its headquarters to a Richmond suburb, with an eye toward efficiency and growth.

Check image specialist CheckAlt has acquired receivables transaction management provider Klik Technologies, a deal CheckAlt hopes will boost its profile as the financial services and corporate payments markets turn toward mobile-based technology to process checks.

Peapack-Gladstone Financial in Bedminster, N.J., is considering additional acquisitions in wealth management after raising $50 million in subordinated debt.

The $3.2 billion-asset Park Sterling announced this week that it will hire four commercial and industrial bankers from the $2.3 billion-asset CommunityOne Bancorp to help expand its commercial banking team in the Charlotte metropolitan area.

Comerica in Dallas said Tuesday that the head of its business bank is stepping down. J. Patrick Faubion will retire from the bank in January, after serving in his current role for less than a year.

Bank of the Ozarks in Little Rock, Ark., has launched a subordinated debt offering that was well telegraphed to the market but that is smaller than some had anticipated.

Delinquencies on non-owner-occupied commercial real estate loans ticked up in the first quarter after years of steady declines. Some are shrugging off the increase, saying it was expected given the strong demand for CRE loans, but others say there's good reason to be concerned.

A megabank on the surface might not seem like the right fit for the financing needs of upstart craft breweries, but Bank of America's Brian Mulvaney has cooked up quite a niche business.

Byline Bancorp in Chicago is expanding into Wisconsin with a deal to buy Ridgestone Financial Services in Brookfield, Wis., for $105 million in cash and stock.

Lending Club has revised its loan sales data for the last week of May after discovering that the numbers included loans that it actually bought itself.

The latest shot was fired this week in the ongoing feud between an investor group and Seacoast Banking Corp. of Florida in Stuart.

Competitive pressure and revenue challenges are creating a need for executives to focus more on strategic planning, and CFOs want a piece of the action. Unfortunately, many CFOs are bogged down with checklists and mundane tasks.

A recent op-ed warning of the risks to participation holders in bank failures missed several important points about today's loan market.

An executive from Regions Financial said recently that his bank plans to pad fee income by expanding into syndication of low-income housing credits. The comment shed light on an increasingly competitive business — and reminded the world again how eager banks are for even incremental boosts to revenue.

FirstMerit reached out to a foreign bank last fall in an effort to negotiate a sale, but the Ohio company eventually agreed to sell itself to Huntington Bancshares for $3.4 billion.