Robert Barba

After a few years of bargain hunting, it looks like buyers are willing to pay up for bank branches. Data on deals announced so far this year shows a median deposit premium of 4%, an improvement of more than 60 basis points from the levels of the last two years.

The FDIC may soon have another option for resolving failed banks whose assets include farm loans. Traditional banks are not welcoming the expected change.

It takes special circumstances for one bank to foreclose on another. A rarity in the industry, but such an event took place this year, leading to last month's sale of Generations Bank to National Bancorp Holdings Inc.

Thomas O'Brien, the chief executive and president of State Bancorp, just proved the adage that short-term pain can sometimes yield long-term gains.

Six banks in four states met their demise and two new banks were chartered in their ashes in perhaps the busiest night the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. has had so far in 2011.

Capitol Bancorp said its annual report that it was notified on March 30 that it would receive a subpoena from the SEC's Chicago office concerning its third-quarter reporting.

Republic Bancorp Inc. has accused the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. of multiple abuses of its authority, escalating an ongoing battle over refund-anticipation loans.

Iberiabank's agreement to buy Omni Bancshares would make it the Lafayette, La., bank's first deal in Louisiana in seven years and its first unassisted bank purchase since 2007.

Four bank failures book-ended the country on Friday. Collectively, they had a total of $1.05 billion in assets and are expected to cost the Deposit Insurance Fund $267.6 million.

Some banking companies are chasing transformative acquisitions, but Wintrust Financial is perfectly comfortable growing block by block.

In the last two weeks of January, two failed banks did not garner a single bid. Though it is still early in the year to declare a trend, the two failures hint at tougher struggles to market banks on the brink and could mean higher costs for the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.

In taking a piecemeal approach to selling problem assets, First Midwest Bancorp Inc. seems to be pleasing only itself.

With regulators catching flak for taking too long to close "zombie" institutions, the failure of United Western Bank seemed atypically quick.

Regulators also closed banks in the Carolinas and Georgia in a busy night that also saw a shelf charter and a deposit insurance national bank utilized.

The FDIC is targeting directors and executives of another failed bank, but this time the agency has a guilty plea to back its claims of mismanagement.

For the first time in years, there is some optimism about community banks' results ahead of the quarterly reporting season.

Investors hoping that dividend increases expected at large banks will trickle down to community banks are probably out of luck.

Midwest banks have long been enamored with growth in sunny locations, but Enterprise Financial is using government-backed deals with loss-sharing agreements as protection.

Rarely is bankruptcy court a welcome detour, but more struggling banks may take it to overcome debtholders blocking their recapitalization efforts.

Increased regulation has been widely cited as a catalyst for the recent wave of bank acquisition deals, but lately regulators have been throwing some wrenches into the works.