SouthState Bank Enters Texas with Independent Financial Merger

On January 2, Winter Haven, Florida-based SouthState Corp. announced the closing of its acquisition of Independent Bank Group Inc. through the merger of McKinney-based Independent Financial with and into SouthState. Immediately after the January 1 merger, Independent Financial’s subsidiary bank, Independent Bank, merged with and into SouthState Bank NA. As a result of these transactions, … Read more

Texas Leads American Banker’s List of Top-performing Large Community Banks

American Banker recently released its 2023 list of top-performing large community banks. The publication’s annual ranking takes a look at how larger community banks are performing in terms of a number of key metrics. Banks with assets between $2 billion and $10 billion of assets were ranked based on their three-year average return on average … Read more

Keystone Bank Raises $18 Million to Fuel More Growth

Bee Cave-based Keystone Bank raised $18 million in its latest round of funding—with an industry expert noting that its growth makes it one of the fastest-growing banks in the country. The fresh funds will be used to expand the bank’s team, enhance its banking technology and put the four-year-old community bank on track to handle … Read more

Will Varo Bank be the Pin that Pops the Fintech Valuation Bubble?

Every banker has read the sensational headlines of massive funding rounds at almost unfathomable valuations for almost any company with a fintech moniker. They also know the narrative; bankers are greedy and dumb, credit unions are slow and can’t innovate, and morally superior (here again) fintechs are here to disrupt the trillion-dollar financial services industry, … Read more