Tom Meuser, the chairman of El Dorado Savings in California, said he could not get the necessary two-thirds backing from his shareholders because of recent declines in bank stock prices.
Deposit premiums for bank mergers, which topped 10% in 2018 for the first time in years, are expected to keep rising as competition for cheap funding intensifies.
In venturing into what's normally a province of large banks, nbkc in Kansas City, Mo., discovered innovative tax-management and other products that it could offer to its own customers or sell to other banks.
