Jelena McWilliams will resign as chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.McWilliams, who has chaired the agency since June 2018, said in an open letter to President Biden on Friday that she will step down on Feb. 4. “Serving the American people alongside the dedicated career professionals of the FDIC has been the highlight of my professional life,” she said in the letter. “Throughout my tenure, the agency has focused on its

A pair of banks has formed charitable foundations before the end of 2021. Mercantile Bank in Grand Rapids, Mich., said in a press release Thursday that it had created the Mercantile Bank Foundation to fund and administer its charitable giving activities. The bank made a $4 million initial capital contribution that will be recorded as noninterest expense in the fourth quarter. More contributions are expected in future periods, depending on the bank’s

RBB Bancorp in Los Angeles will enter the San Francisco market after it buys Gateway Bank in Oakland. The $3.8 billion-asset RBB said in a press release Tuesday that it will pay $22.9 million in cash for the $172 million-asset Gateway. The deal is expected to close in the second quarter. Gateway has on branch, $123 million of loans and $148 million of deposits. The bank primarily serves Asian-American communities around

An activist investor is pressing the board of Codorus Valley Bancorp to explain several bylaw changes that were not highlighted in a recent announcement about the York, Pa., company’s corporate governance changes. The $2.3 billion-asset Codorus issued a press release on Dec. 20 touting several changes to its board and the decision to adopt majority voting in uncontested director elections. While the company said other changes were made, it did not

Organizers behind Bank of Burlington in Vermont plan to raise $24 million to $30 million of initial capital. The group said in its application with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. that the bank would focus largely on small businesses. There are no plans to offer retail loans, and most of the deposits would come from small business owners, professionals and municipalities. “The bank intends to become the leading small business lender in

Nano Banc in Irvine, Calif., has been issued a cease-and-desist order after replacing several directors and hiring a new CEO without securing approval from California’s Department of Financial Protection and Innovation. The state regulator issued the C&D order against the $1.2 billion-asset bank on Dec. 15. The order states that Nano Banc violated a February consent order requiring the bank to provide notice to the state regulator before making any senior

Washington Federal in Seattle has been freed from a three-year-old regulatory order. The $19.7 billion-asset company disclosed in a regulatory filing Monday that the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency has terminated a 2018 consent order it had issued to WaFd Bank. The order required WaFd to enhance its Bank Secrecy Act program by creating a BSA-focused action plan, supplement existing customer due diligence policies and procedures and perform a

Bank of Montreal has agreed to buy Bank of the West in San Francisco. Bank of Montreal said in a press release Monday that it will pay $16.3 billion in cash for the $105 billion-asset unit of BNP Paribas. The deal, which priced Bank of the West at 150% of its tangible book value, is expected to close by the end of 2022. Bank of the West, which has $56 billion of