Business news in brief

Customers Bank announced plans to open a loan production office at Ninth and Berks Streets in North Philadelphia. The bank, which has its executive offices in Wyomissing, Berks County, also set a goal of lending at least $300 million from that office during the next three years. "There are too many banks around Rittenhouse Square and Market Street in Philadelphia - all trying to go after the wealthy and large businesses," said Jay S. Sidhu, Customers' chairman and chief executive. Sidhu said Customers made $31 million in mortgage, small-business, and community- development loans in Philadelphia last year. Customers, which has $3.7 billion in assets, said its goal was to increase that to $80 million this year and to more than $100 million by 2015. Customers said it expected to open the office, which will start with five employees, in one to three months, pending approval from state banking regulators. - Harold Brubaker

U.S. deaths from motor-vehicle crashes dropped in the first six months of the year, and both Pennsylvania and New Jersey mirrored the national trend, the National Safety Council said. In 2013, an estimated 16,620 traffic deaths occurred from January through June, compared with 17,430 in 2012, a 5 percent decline. In Pennsylvania, traffic deaths were down 14 percent from the six-month period a year earlier, from 640 in 2012 to 553 in 2013. In New Jersey, deaths were down by 10 percent, from 223 to 200. The safety council did not speculate on the causes for the decline. - Paul Nussbaum

The drug packager AmerisourceBergen Corp., of Valley Forge, said it authorized a $750 million share buyback. That is on top of $446.1 million remaining in a buyback program the company authorized in November. Repurchases will be made subject to market conditions. To date in its fiscal year that ends Sept. 30, AmerisourceBergen has spent $401.1 million to repurchase outstanding shares of its common stock, the company said. AmerisourceBergen has about $80 billion in annual revenue and employs about 13,000. - Reid Kanaley

An old phone scam is generating new complaints in Pennsylvania, the state Attorney General's Office says. Recorded calls claim to be from the nonexistent "State Investigations Department" and advise recipients that their names have surfaced in a criminal inquiry. The robocalls then direct recipients to call a number and provide personal information "to clear the matter up," the attorney general says. Another recently reported scam involves recordings claiming to be from the FBI. Consumers who believe they have been victimized should call the attorney general's hotline at 1-800-441-2555. - Jeff Gelles

A survey by GasBuddy.com that ranks 5,600 cities and towns in the United States and Canada by the average price of a gallon of gasoline shows costs Thursday ranging from a high of $5.30 (in U.S. dollars) in Delta, British Columbia, to a low of $3.09 in Danville, Va. The top 142 municipalities were in Canada, where an oil-sands production boom seems not to be having a huge impact at the pump. The highest U.S. price - at number 143 on the list - was Needles, Calif., a desert gas stop on the Arizona border, where the price averaged $4.79 a gallon. Philadelphia stood at number 1,867 on the list, with a pump average of $3.69. Cherry Hill was at number 3,988, with gasoline costing $3.49. - Reid Kanaley

Mortgage buyer Freddie Mac said the average on the 30-year loan edged up to 4.40 percent from 4.39 percent last week. The rate is a full percentage point higher than in early May, when rates neared record lows. But rates remain low by historical standards. The average on the 15-year fixed loan was unchanged at 3.43 percent. Mortgage rates spiked in June after Chairman Ben Bernanke indicated the Federal Reserve could slow its bond purchases later this year. The bond purchases have kept long-term interest rates low, encouraging borrowing and spending. Despite the recent rate increases, mortgages remain a bargain for those who can qualify. Low rates have boosted home sales and prices, contributing to a housing recovery that has helped drive economic growth this year. - AP

Deutsche Telekom AG reported its net income rose 10 percent in the second quarter, boosted by its U.S. business adding "droves" of new customers. The company cut its profit target for the year due to the extra spending on marketing and other expenses tied with the increase in business in the U.S. MetroPCS merged with Telekom's U.S. business in May to form T-Mobile US. The company said its U.S. business added 688,000 customers under branded contract plans, the most lucrative kind for phone companies, in the April-June quarter, compared with a loss of 557,000 in the year-ago quarter. - AP

A lawyer for plaintiffs in a wrongful-death lawsuit against Toyota Motor Corp. told a jury that he would ask for $20 million in damages for the family of a woman who died when her Camry suddenly accelerated and crashed despite her efforts to stop. The case involving the 2009 death of Noriko Uno is the first involving the issue to go to trial in state court. Toyota recalled millions of vehicles worldwide after drivers reported that some of its vehicles were surging unexpectedly. The company agreed to pay $1 billion in other suits. - AP

Federal prosecutors say a hacker has been sentenced in a data breach that exposed personal information for 138,000 people kept in Sony Pictures Entertainment computers. Los Angeles U.S. attorney's spokesman Thom Mrozek says 21-year-old Raynaldo Rivera was sentenced Thursday to 366 days in prison, 13 months of house arrest, and 1,000 hours of community service. Prosecutors say Rivera was a member of LulzSec, a hacking group committed to causing anarchy in corporate and government entities. He has also been ordered to pay $605,663 in restitution. Rivera pleaded guilty to obtaining confidential information from Sony and posting it publicly, along with at least one other LulzSec member. LulzSec is known for its affiliation with the hacking group Anonymous. - AP