The racially targeted mass shooting at a Buffalo, New York, grocery store in 2022 has renewed conversations about whether banks have a duty to help segregated, impoverished communities that were shaped in part by discriminatory lending practices. What do banks owe the Black community, and what influence could they have?

Gateway First Bank, a former nonbank home lender, rode the pandemic era's mortgage wave to No. 1 on American Banker's latest list of top-performing banks based on full-year 2022 data. Now it has to cope with the housing market slowdown.

Several community banks noted an uptick in problem loans in second-quarter earnings reports. Small lenders should brace for more of this, industry observers noted.

The average credit union member had saved $286 less in March compared to a year earlier. That was the largest per-member drop in credit union history, fueled by rising costs of living and more aggressive competition.

The American Bankers Association's Economic Advisory Committee said access to loans is likely to further soften, while defaults and credit losses could increase in the second half of the year.

The Philadelphia-based company will eliminate an undisclosed number of jobs as part of a plan to refocus on core business lines and markets, CEO Thomas Geisel said.

With the acquisition, the Lake City, Florida-based community bank will nab a consumer-direct platform and expand its footprint in the Midwest.

Rising vacancy levels, soaring interest rates and weaknesses exposed by recent bank failures have analysts and investors worried about banks' outsized exposure to high-rise office, apartment and retail properties.

Lenders had started tightening as early as the fourth quarter in anticipation of a possible recession. Now, the banking crisis is driving community and regional banks in particular to hit the brakes harder, stoking renewed recessions fears.

The banks invested in bonds at a time when rates were low, and their value has since dropped substantially. While there appears to be very little risk that the banks will ever have to realize the losses, an American Banker data analysis raises questions about whether regulators should toughen their monitoring of interest rate risk.