Over the past few years, we've seen a raft of acquisitions in nearly every sector of the economy. Banking, however, is an exception. Perhaps it's caution. Perhaps a fear of regulators (it's one of the most tightly regulated businesses in America). Whatever the reason(s), acquisitions have occurred only sporadically and basically only at the local and regional level.

But there have been a few stirrings lately, the most recent being from Pennsylvania-based banking group CNB Financial (CCNE -1.68%), which in the dying days of 2015 announced it had acquired a small, privately held peer, Lake National Bank. Let's take a look at the deal and see what it might -- or might not -- portend for the sector going forward.

Dipping into the Lake
The two companies have signed a definitive agreement for CNB Financial to pay just under $25 million to acquire Lake National Bank.

The latter is fairly small in terms of assets, with a bit over $152 million as of last September. That's a far cry from CNB Financial's figure of almost $2.3 billion as of its most recently reported quarter. And Lake National has only two branches.

But the appeal of the company as an acquisition has less to do with size and balance sheet and more with geography. In its press release heralding the purchase, CNB Financial quoted CEO Joseph Bower as saying that his company was "excited to continue expansion of our franchise in Ohio by entering the Mentor market in the greater Cleveland area."

Both Lake National branches are located in Mentor -- until now. Although CNB Financial has a small presence in Ohio, it hasn't held any assets near Cleveland -- the state's second-largest city. In addition to that proximity, Mentor is home to many of the small and medium-sized businesses CNB Financial specializes in providing services for.

The acquisition is subject to approval from Lake National's shareholders. It also must pass the scrutiny of the relevant regulatory bodies.

Merger mania?
The CNB Financial/Lake National deal comes on the heels of two other notable tie-ups in the banking industry, both of which were larger but still on a regional/local level. The first was M&T Bank's (MTB -0.84%) $5.5 billion buyout of Hudson City Bancorp in October and the other was New York Community Bancorp's (NYCB -3.00%) roughly $2 billion purchase of fellow Empire State lender Astoria Financial (AF).

So is the start of some kind of trend?

I wouldn't say so. The M&T Bank/Hudson City merger was actually agreed to in 2012, but the Federal Reserve expressed concern that the acquirer's anti-money laundering controls were insufficient, and strongly encouraged improvement of same in order to earn its approval. Patient M&T Bank spent three years and tens of millions of dollars on doing so, only after which the Fed's green light was turned on.

As for NYCB/Astoria, the latter bank might not have been for sale had it not been for the machinations of activist investor Basswood Capital Management, which very much wanted it to "take steps to enhance shareholder value" -- like a sell-off, for instance.

Both deals, then, were the product of unique circumstances.

The local and regional banking segments are still big and scattered. Meanwhile, the larger banks are struggling to grow meaningfully in a still-low interest rate environment. So it would probably be in their interest to snap up a profitable small fish or several. But, whatever their reasons, they're not eagerly doing so. We'll see if that changes going forward.