Alan Kline

Two former loan officers at Sterling Financial have been sentenced to lengthy prison terms and ordered to pay $53 million in restitution for their role in a multiyear fraud scheme.

Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. board member Thomas Hoenig has a bold suggestion for regulators crafting Basel III capital rules: start over.

If the government is bent on winding down Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac sooner rather than later, then it helps that some major lenders are committing to buy back soured loans from the government-sponsored enterprises all at once, rather than quarter by quarter.

EverBank Financial originated $2.7 billion of loans and leases in the second quarter, up 19% from the first quarter and 89% from the year ago.

First Horizon National in Memphis lost close to $125 million in the second quarter after it bought back scores of soured mortgage loans from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

A federal appeals court has denied Republic Bancorp's bid to recover $14 million it lost on securities investments because it believes the company should have been aware of the risks it was taking.

BB&T chief executive Kelly King urged his fellow bankers to vote against politicians who favor more regulation of the private sector and replace them with leaders who have more faith in the free markets.

Pennsylvania's House of Representatives this week voted unanimously to use all the funds received from the national mortgage settlement to help at-risk homeowners rather than use a portion of it to plug budget gaps.

ViewPoint Bank in Plano, Texas, is selling its home lending unit to a Dallas-based nonbank lender as part of its continued shift from a thrift to a commercial bank.

Marion Sandler, the co-chief executive at Golden West Financial in Oakland, Calif., for more than four decades, has died at the age of 81.

Deloitte says that assets controlled by the shadow banking system—including asset- and mortgage-backed securities—have declined by more than 50% in the last four years, to $9.53 trillion at Dec. 31.

The Deloitte Center for Financial Services says that assets controlled by the shadow banking system—including money-market mutual funds and asset- and mortgage-backed securities -have declined by more than 50% in the last four years, to $9.53 trillion at Dec. 31.

Wilshire State Bank has been released from an enforcement order that required it to boost its capital ratios and reduce its level of problem loans.

Umpqua Holdings in Portland, Ore., continues to ramp up in commercial real estate lending at a time when many other banks are shying away from the sector.

Continuing its rapid expansion throughout the Northeast, Berkshire Hills Bancorp said that it has acquired Greenpark Mortgage Corp.

Aided by its January purchase of State Bancorp, Valley National Bancorp in Wayne, N.J., reported strong loan growth in the first quarter, though its overall earnings declined slightly from the prior year due to merger related costs and other one-time events.

Sterling Financial, Spokane, Wash., reported that first-quarter net income rose 146% from the same period last year, to $13.3 million, due primarily to growth in loan balances, lower funding costs and improved asset quality.

The pace of bank failures will slow considerably this year as the industry continues to recover from the real estate bust, according to the acting head of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.

Improved asset quality and declining expenses powered Washington Federal in Seattle to a $34 million profit in the quarter that ended March 31, a 32% increase from the same period in 2011.

Bank of America is preparing to sell off hundreds of foreclosed homes in bulk as part of its ongoing effort to clear out its inventory of distressed assets.