The final phase in the region’s ongoing banking crisis may have begun.

After a near meltdown in the business of commercial lending, a string of transactions and capital raises has put the banking industry back on healthier footing. Profits have returned, new players have entered the market and

Heritage Oaks, the biggest bank in  San Luis Obispo County, has finally shed a regulatory order that had limited its financial flexibility for several years.

At the same time, Community West Bancshares, based in Goleta, faces new scrutiny from regulators.

Community West is among very few banks left in the region that haven’t merged or found new capital. That the list of problem banks has dwindled to just a few means an ugly chapter in the history of banking on the Central Coast may be coming to an end.