Three more banks have joined a group dedicated to blockchain initiatives. Amerant Bancorp in Coral Gables, Fla.; ConnectOne Bancorp in Englewood Cliffs, N.J.; and Primis Financial in McLean, Va., have joined the USDF Consortium in San Francisco. The consortium said it will move to a tier-based participation model while eliminating the minimum $1 billion-asset threshold for joining. The group also hired Piper Sandler to help it develop a pipeline of interested banks. The

Bank of New York Mellon will have a new CEO this summer.The $444 billion-asset company said in a press release Thursday that Todd Gibbons will retire on Aug. 31. Robin Vince, the company's chairman and CEO of global market infrastructure, has been named president and CEO-elect and will succeed Gibbons following his retirement.Gibbons, who will also step down from the board, has been CEO since September 2019.  Before joining Bank of

A loan dispute is seemingly at the root of a director’s abrupt resignation at BayFirst Financial in St. Petersburg, Fla. The $917 million-asset company disclosed in a regulatory filing Wednesday that it asked Trifon Houvardas to step down. He resigned on March 4. BayFirst said, prior to his resignation, Houvardas had guaranteed a loan to a bank borrower. The borrower defaulted on the payments due on the loan and, at BayFirst’s request,

Lynn Fuller, who made a number of acquisitions as CEO of Heartland Financial USA, now wants the Dubuque, Iowa, company to consider finding a buyer.Fuller, who retired as CEO in 2018, is part of group that sent a letter to the $19.3 billion-asset company’s board on March 8 “expressing concerns” about management’s decisions tied to “performance, growth and prospects,” according to a regulatory filing. "I would be remiss if I did

Lake Shore Bancorp in Dunkirk, N.Y., disclosed that someone gained unauthorized access to data in its internal systems. The $714 million-asset company said in a regulatory filing that its bank experienced a data security incident in November that barred employees from accessing internal systems and data for “a limited period of time.” The bank immediately launched an investigation and hired a digital forensics firm to help determine the scope of the incident

First Republic Bank in San Francisco expects its founder to return from medical leave next month. The $173 billion-asset bank disclosed in a regulatory filing the co-CEO Jim Herbert will be back on April 4. He has also been reappointed to the board. The leave of absence began on Jan. 1 and was expected to last six months. First Republic also announced in January that it had begun a search for a new

OceanFirst Financial in Red Bank, N.J., is the latest bank to delay the closing date of a planned acquisition. Partners Bancorp in Salisbury, Md., disclosed in a regulatory filing Tuesday that it no longer expects to complete its $186 million sale to the $11.7 billion-asset OceanFirst by the end of the second quarter. The disclosure came after the OceanFirst advised the $1.6 billion-asset Partners that it had “received notice that certain of

Banc of California in Santa Ana is set to receive a large payment that partially addressed a chargeoff it recorded in 2019. The $9.4 billion-asset company said in a regulatory filing Monday that it should receive $31.3 million tied to a settlement with Chicago Title Insurance and Chicago Title. The bank agreed to release the entities from all claims tied to the loan.The bank was one of several companies that accused