Minnesota Bank & Trust, Edina, Minn., a subsidiary of Heartland Financial USA, Inc., Dubuque, Iowa, and Signature Bank, Minnetonka, Minn., have agreed to merge. Signature Bank will be blended into Minnesota Bank & Trust’s operations and brand. The combined bank will create a $600 million Heartland subsidiary. [Continue]
Midcareer bankers have a new and easy way to build their industry knowledge and professional network: BankBeatGroups launches this month, making monthly webinars and periodic live events available to people in the banking industry looking to take their career to the next level.
BankBeatGroups will offer access to subject-matter experts across the spectrum of banking topics. Monthly webinars will be conducted over the lunch hour on the third Thursday of the month, beginning Jan. 18. The first webinar features KC Mathews, UMB Bank executive vice president and chief investment officer. He will offer an overview of the economy. The presentation will last about 20 minutes, with additional time available for dialogue. [Continue]
Information from a newly launched assessment tool shows mortgage delinquency rates have dropped to levels not seen since before the recession, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau said.
According to the CFPB’s Mortgage Performance Trends tool, the national rate of seriously delinquent mortgages peaked at 4.9 percent in 2010. As of March 2017, the rate had fallen to 1.1 percent, the lowest level since 2008.
That recovery extends to the recession’s hardest hit states. [Continue]
Community Development Bank, FSB, of Ogema, Minn., has completed its purchase of the First American Bank, N.A., branch in St. Michael, Minn. The deal closed on Oct. 20. First American, based in Hudson, Wis., acquired Great Northern Bank in St. Michael in 2014 and converted it into a branch. Great Northern was a 1999 de novo. First American Bank was formed in 2007. [Continue]
In 1918, James Kewley, Wilbur Kerns and Henry Knoche organized the Onarga State Bank, Onarga, Ill. In 1983, the bank changed its name to Federated Bank of Onarga, and in 2018 the bank will be one of nine in the Upper Midwest to commemorate a centennial anniversary. [Continue]
Midland States Bancorp, Inc., has concluded its purchase of fellow Illinois bank Centrue Financial Corp. That marks the 12th acquisition since 2008 by the Effingham, Ill.-based operator of Midland States Bank. There could be more, as Midland States has fresh SEC permission to sell as much as $165 million of new stock “to support the continued implementation of our organic and acquisitive growth strategies,” said Leon J. Holschbach, president and CEO. [Continue]
Opportunity Bank of Montana, Helena, will acquire Ruby Valley Bank, Twin Bridges, Mont. According to FDIC records the acquisition of the $90 million Ruby Valley will make Opportunity the fifth-largest Montana-based bank with $800 million in assets. Ruby Valley has two branches — Twin Bridges and Sheridan — and the combined company will have 16 branches. [Continue]
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has finalized its payday lending rule, creating “strong, common-sense protections” to prevent “financially vulnerable consumers” from falling into “payday debt traps,” the bureau said. [Continue]
More than nine years after Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were first brought into the conservatorship of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, they remain there. Both the ICBA and the ABA addressed the House Financial Services Committee’s Subcommittee on Housing and Insurance about the reform of the two government-sponsored enterprises Wednesday. [Continue]
A Congressional denial of the CFPB’s restriction on arbitration agreements took another step forward late Tuesday night thanks to Vice President Mike Pence casting a tiebreaking vote in the Senate. With Republican Senators Lindsey Graham (S.C.) and John Kennedy (La.) voting with the Democrats, the Senate split 50-50, leaving it to Pence to break the tie on a resolution voiding the CFPB’s rule. [Continue]