It covers September 10th through 17th. It also adds to our record, at their original dates, several deals we had missed; they are listed in section 8.
This week's thesis. In eight days, four technology companies took four different routes toward a bank charter, and one of them gave up and went home. TabaPay agreed to buy a 120-year-old national bank in Denver, Colorado. Chime agreed to buy the parent of the very bank that has been sponsoring its accounts. Block applied for an uninsured trust charter that takes no deposits at all. And Enova withdrew both of its regulatory applications and said the rules were not clear enough to be worth the wait. Taken together they are the clearest evidence yet that buying a charter has become the preferred route in — and that the approval process, not the deal, is where these transactions are decided.
TabaPay, Inc. of Palo Alto, California has applied to the Federal Reserve to become a bank holding company by acquiring Transact Bank, National Association of Denver, Colorado. The notice was published September 14th and comments close October 14th. TabaPay announced the deal itself on September 2nd, alongside a $155 million financing led by FTV Capital, and says the bank will operate as TabaBank under its national charter. Transact Bank was chartered in 1905 and has had no holding company since 2018. The price has not been disclosed.
Interpretation. A payments processor buying an insured national bank outright is a different proposition from the trust-charter applications that have filled the pipeline for a year. It brings deposit insurance and a full charter from day one, and it puts the acquirer under Federal Reserve holding-company supervision, which the trust route avoids. Whether the Board treats a payments company's other businesses as closely related to banking is what the comment period will test.
Chime Financial, Inc. has agreed to acquire Central Service Corporation of Enid, Oklahoma, the parent of Stride Bank, National Association, for $590 million in cash. The agreement is dated September 8th. Stride becomes Chime Bank on closing, expected in the first half of 2027. Central Service shareholders have already approved the transaction; the Comptroller and the Federal Reserve have not. Chime says it will keep the bank's assets below $10 billion for the foreseeable future.
Interpretation. Chime has been renting this bank's charter for years. Buying it converts a sponsorship fee into an owned balance sheet, and the $10 billion commitment is a promise to stay below the threshold where interchange revenue is capped. Read next to TabaPay, the pattern is that the sponsor-bank relationship has become an acquisition pipeline: the fintech already knows the bank, the regulators, and the book.
WaFd, Inc. of Seattle, Washington and EverBank Financial Corp of Jacksonville, Florida have agreed to a $3.9 billion all-stock reverse merger. Announced September 7th. WaFd survives as the listed company, takes the EverBank name and the ticker EVBK, and WaFd Bank merges into EverBank, National Association. EverBank's shareholders will hold 59.2 percent of the combined company. On WaFd's own figures the result is roughly $75 billion of assets, $59 billion of deposits and $58 billion of loans as of June 30th, with $135 million of annual cost savings targeted. Closing is expected early in 2027, subject to WaFd's shareholder vote and regulatory approval.
Interpretation. The structure is worth reading twice. The company that survives is WaFd; the company whose name, ticker and management direction survive is EverBank. That combination — a national digital and specialty lender joined to a branch and deposit franchise across the West — is the same logic driving much smaller deals this month, at a scale where it draws different regulatory attention.
John Marshall Bancorp, Inc. of Reston, Virginia has agreed to acquire Eagle Financial Services, Inc. of Berryville, Virginia, the parent of Bank of Clarke, for about $253 million in stock. Announced September 8th, at two John Marshall shares for each Eagle share. The combined bank would hold roughly $4.4 billion of assets as of June 30th across 23 offices, with the holding company in Reston and the bank headquartered in Berryville. The board splits six and six. Bank of Clarke keeps its name in the Shenandoah Valley and in the mortgage, leasing and trust businesses. Closing is expected early in the first quarter of 2027.
Interpretation. This is a commercial lender in the Washington suburbs buying a deposit franchise that has been gathering money in the Shenandoah Valley since 1881. The retained brand and the evenly split board are not sentiment; they are how the buyer protects the deposits it is paying for.
UBancshares, Inc. of Knoxville, Tennessee has agreed to acquire Heritage Community Bank of Greeneville, Tennessee. Announced September 14th, cash and stock, value undisclosed. The combined bank would hold about $367 million of assets and $310 million of deposits across five locations in Knoxville, Greeneville and Jellico, Tennessee. Heritage offices are to operate indefinitely as a division of UBank.
Interpretation. A $367 million bank is where most of this industry actually lives, and the division structure says the buyer thinks the Greeneville name is worth more than the efficiency of retiring it.
First National of Nebraska, Inc. of Omaha, Nebraska has agreed to acquire InBankshares, Corp of Greenwood Village, Colorado for between $200 million and $204 million in cash. Announced September 2nd. InBank holds about $1.4 billion of assets across nine branches along the Colorado Front Range and four in northern New Mexico, and will be rebranded as FNBO. The consideration moves with tangible equity at closing, so the range is the disclosure, not a rounding. Regulatory approval is expected by the end of this year and the customer conversion in the second half of 2027.
Profinium Financial Holdings, Inc. of Fairmont, Minnesota has filed its application to acquire F&M Community Bank, National Association of Preston, Minnesota. Published September 15th; comments close October 15th. The deal was reported August 26th and this is the first regulatory record of it.
Bank First Corporation of Manitowoc, Wisconsin has received approval from the Comptroller and the Federal Reserve to acquire PSB Holdings, Inc. of Wausau, Wisconsin, and PSB's shareholders have approved the merger. Both were announced on September 8th, a week after the September 2nd special meeting. Bank First's own shareholders were not required to vote. Closing is expected December 4th, with Peoples State Bank offices opening as Bank First on Monday, December 7th.
Interpretation. Last week's brief noted that the silence after the vote carried no information, because PSB owes nobody a filing. The result arrived through the buyer, which does. That is worth remembering as a general rule: when a private target goes quiet, watch the public acquirer.
Enova International, Inc. has withdrawn its applications to the Comptroller and the Federal Reserve for the proposed acquisition of Grasshopper Bancorp, Inc. of New York, New York. Announced September 14th. The agreement dates from December 10th of last year and was valued at about $369 million. Enova's chief executive said banking rules "have not kept pace with the realities of meeting the credit needs of tens of millions of consumers and small businesses underserved by traditional banks," and described the approval process as susceptible to political pressure and outside advocacy. That is the company's position, not our finding.
We record this as the withdrawal of the applications and nothing more. Neither the press release nor the Form 8-K says the merger agreement has been terminated, and we are not going to say it for them.
Interpretation. Set against Chime, this is the week's most useful contrast. Both companies wanted the same thing. Both had willing sellers and shareholder support. The difference between them is not the strategy or the money; it is nine months of applications. For any board weighing a nonbank buyer, the lesson is that the approval calendar is the deal risk.
Block, Inc. has applied to the Comptroller to establish Builders Bank & Trust, National Association, an uninsured national trust bank that would not accept deposits or make loans, to provide custody and fiduciary services including for bitcoin and stablecoins. Announced September 8th. An application is not an approval, and the company says the bank would not commence operations until it has one.
Nola Bank opened for business in New Orleans, Louisiana on September 14th. Organized originally as InclusiveBANK, it operates as a minority depository institution and was required to raise $26.4 million of initial capital. We are recording the opening and nothing further: the charter type, the chartering regulator and the deposit-insurance decision date are not established from any source we have read, and we are not taking them from a headline.
Dorado Bank of San Juan, Puerto Rico, which we have carried as a pending charter with no public source, now has one. Dorado Bank Financial Holdings Corp has applied to become its holding company; published September 14th, comments close October 14th. It is a routine step and it is the first document that puts the project on the public record.
Mercury Bank, National Association of Salt Lake City, Utah and VALT Bank of Eagle, Idaho have both received conditional deposit-insurance approval from the FDIC, adding the second of the two gates a new bank needs to the charter approvals each already held. Mercury must raise at least $300 million of initial capital and projects opening in 2027; VALT must raise at least $25 million. Neither approval lets either bank open. We have recorded both approvals without dates, because the FDIC's own decision pages have returned nothing readable for a month and we will not date a regulatory action from a secondary report.
The Comptroller's list of pending digital-asset charter applications changed shape and we are still not reading it as news. The page shows six applicants, all already conditionally approved, and none of the eleven pending applicants it carried the week before. Eleven applications do not resolve in a week without a single decision document, and none has appeared. Nothing in our record of those applicants has changed.
Land of Lincoln Credit Union of Decatur, Illinois completed its purchase of Williamsville State Bank & Trust of Williamsville, Illinois on August 31st, with former bank customers becoming credit union members on September 1st. The bank's three offices at Williamsville, Springfield and Sherman, Illinois do not keep their name. The price was not disclosed. This is an addition to our record rather than news of this week, and it is explained in section 8.
No new supervisory action. The most recent entry on the National Credit Union Administration's list of actions remains the September 1st assisted merger of WeDevelopment Federal Credit Union of Kansas City, Missouri into CommunityAmerica Federal Credit Union.
Two control-related notices, neither a change of hands. The Ruggels family's notice to retain shares of Republic Bancshares, Inc. of Russell, Kansas and Southwind Bank of Natoma, Kansas was published September 10th, with comments closing September 25th. The employee stock ownership plan of Banner County Ban Corporation of Harrisburg, Nebraska has applied to acquire up to 48.96 percent of the company, which already owns all of Banner Capital Bank; comments close October 13th. Both are reorganizations of ownership that already exists, and we collect them rather than tracking them as transactions.
A holding-company reorganization that reads like a purchase and is not one. A newly formed Maryland corporation named Hometown Financial Group, Inc. has filed to become a bank holding company by acquiring TruNorth Bank of Easthampton, Massachusetts. Comments close October 19th. Hometown Financial Group has owned that bank outright since 2008. The filing implements the mutual-to-stock conversion announced in July, and no bank changes hands. We mention it because the Federal Register's standard phrasing for this — "to become a bank holding company by acquiring" — is identical to the phrasing for a genuine third-party purchase, and a reader scanning notices would have no way to tell them apart.
Comment periods closed this week on the Hull family, PBI Holdings, 7 Gen Holdings and Silver Queen Financial Services applications. A closed comment period is not a decision and none has been announced. Ahead: HomeTrust Bancshares' warrant election deadline September 19th; comment periods close for Journey Financial Group and Meade Bancorp on September 21st, for Agricultural Banking Corp and Versa Bancorp on September 25th, and for Novus Capital Holdings on September 30th. Datavault AI's outside date for closing its purchase of BankWyse is also September 30th.
The FDIC's failed-bank pages have returned nothing readable for a month, and its deposit-insurance decision pages refused us outright — which is why two approvals in section 3 carry no date. The Comptroller's index of corporate decisions no longer returns its table to an automated reader, so any decision after Corporate Decision 1390 of September 2nd would not have been seen here. Neither absence is evidence that nothing happened.
This was our first week on a weekly schedule, and checking two weeks of inputs against our record found more than the week's filings alone. The following were added at their original dates. They are corrections to our own completeness, not news.
Three transactions announced earlier in September and now in our record: Equity Bancshares, Inc. of Wichita, Kansas and Lincoln Bancorp of Reinbeck, Iowa, announced September 3rd, about $123.8 million at the announcement-date share price; Parkside Financial, Inc. of Clayton, Missouri and First American Bancorp of Greenwood Village, Colorado, reported September 2nd, value undisclosed; and the Georgia Skyline organizing group's proposed acquisition and recapitalization of Highlands Community Bank of Covington, Virginia, reported September 3rd. On the last of these our sources disagree about whether the transaction has already closed, so we are holding it and publishing nothing further until a closing record exists.
Three transactions that closed in August and were not in our record at all: Hawthorn Bancshares, Inc. of Jefferson City, Missouri completed its acquisition of FSC Bancshares, Inc. of Cameron, Missouri on September 3rd; Bastrop Bancshares, Inc. of Bastrop, Texas completed its acquisition of Columbus Bancorp, Inc. of Columbus, Texas on August 1st; and Hancock Whitney Corporation of Gulfport, Mississippi completed its acquisition of OFB Bancshares, Inc. of Orlando, Florida, the parent of One Florida Bank, on August 1st. The last of those was a $2.1 billion bank.
Interpretation, and it is about us rather than the industry. A $2.1 billion acquisition was announced in May, approved over the summer, closed on August 1st and recorded in the Federal Reserve's own structure data, and none of it reached our record until today. The reason is not that the transaction was obscure. It is that the controls that would have caught it — a sweep of acquirers' own investor-relations pages, and a keyword sweep of merger filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission — are specified and have never been run. Three of the four combinations we added this week were found by comparing the Federal Reserve's structure file against our own record, which is a check that costs nothing and had not been run either. We would rather say that plainly than let a complete-looking tracker imply a completeness we have not earned.
Sources, primary first: issuer releases and investor presentations of TabaPay, Chime, EverBank and WaFd, John Marshall Bancorp and Eagle Financial Services, UBank, First National of Nebraska, Hancock Whitney, Hawthorn Bancshares, Block, Enova and Land of Lincoln Credit Union; Chime and Enova Forms 8-K and the John Marshall Form 425, Securities and Exchange Commission; Federal Register notices 2026-18763, 2026-18861, 2026-18762, 2026-18594 and 2026-18462; Federal Reserve H.2A releases of September 11th and September 16th; Federal Reserve National Information Center structure data, September 2, 2026; the Comptroller's digital-assets licensing applications page; the National Credit Union Administration's list of conservatorships and liquidations; The Bank Slate; and the Peoples State Bank release of September 8th.
Revised for readability on September 23, 2026. The facts are unchanged.