Two executives at Metallicus, a San Francisco fintech, has applied to form a bank holding company and buy State Bank of Nauvoo in Illinois. The company, which develops product on the blockchain, said in a press release that it created FBBT Holdings to expand banking and financial services to underserved clients in emerging technology industries. FBBT agreed to buy the $37 million-asset State Bank of Nauvoo in a deal expected

TD Bank in Toronto; Independent Bank Group in McKinney, Texas; and HSBC Holdings are the latest banks to settle longstanding litigation tied to Stanford Financial Group. TD Bank agreed to pay $1.2 billion to settle claims it aided in the $7 billion Ponzi scheme. Independent, which inherited exposure from a past acquisition, will pay $100 million, while HSBC will pay $40 million. Allen Stanford was convicted of fraud and money

Synergy Bancshares in Houma, La., has agreed to buy Peoples Bancshares of Pointe Coupee Parish in New Roads, La. The $763 million-asset Synergy said in a press release that it expects to complete the purchase of the parent of the $337 million-asset Peoples Bank in the third quarter. The price wasn’t disclosed. Synergy will enter the Baton Rouge, La., market with the acquisition. Peoples has four branches, $257 million of

HarborOne Bancorp in Brockton, Mass., has changed its bank’s charter after getting too big to use a benefit of being a state-chartered savings bank. The $5.4 billion-asset company disclosed in a regulatory filing that HarborOne Bank switched to a state-chartered trust company and ended its membership in the Depositors Insurance Fund. The DIF insures deposit balances held by Massachusetts-chartered savings banks in excess of the federal deposit insurance coverage amounts.

The Credit Union Executives Society (CUES) in Madison, Wis., has hired a search firm to help it find a successor for John Pembroke, who died in November. CUES hired DDJ Myers to help it find a new president and CEO, according to the Credit Union Times. Pembroke “created a solid foundation and trajectory for the organization by tripling CUES membership, launching new and innovative offerings and positioning the organization as

The Federal Reserve Board has rejected a request by Custodia Bank to reconsider last month’s decision to deny the Cheyenne, Wyo., company’s application to be supervised by the Fed. The Fed rejected Custodia’s application after concluding that it was “inconsistent with the required factors under the law.” The regulator determined that the business model and proposed focus on novel and untested crypto activities “presented significant safety and soundness risks.” The

Citizens Trust Bank in Atlanta will hold about $65 million of USD Coin (USDC) cash reserves for Circle Internet Financial in Boston. Circle, a digital fintech firm that issues USDC, said the agreement is part of a broader effort to allocate a share of USDC dollar-denominated reserves to minority depository institutions (MDIs) and community banks. "For the future of finance and banking to be more inclusive than the past, historically marginalized

Federal bank regulators are warning banks to be diligent about potential runs associated with crypto-related deposits. The Federal Reserve, Federal Deposits Insurance Corporation and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, in a joint statement, pressed banks to keep an eye on certain crypto-related deposits. They pointed specifically to deposits banks hold for crypto firms’ clients and deposits used as reserves for stablecoins. Rather than introduce new risk management requirements, the