Last week we reported on U.S. banks with robust Commercial & Industrial (C&I) loan growth during calendar 2021. In spite of the winding down of the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), we found 51 established C&I lenders with at least 35%…
Category: Commercial Real Estate
Signs of Life in C&I Lending, Will it Last?
We saw a glimmer of hope in the fourth quarter ’21 data that perhaps a resurgence of commercial and industrial (C&I) loan demand was on its way. Nearly a third of all U.S. banks increased their C&I loan portfolios during…
Listening Carefully for the Other Shoe to Drop
If we’ve learned anything in the past year and a half, it’s that nothing is foolproof. Nor is anything 100% predictable. In much the same way that New York cabbies (and the institutions that financed them) had to deal with…
Lending a Helping Hand, Sometimes Means Lending.
Loan volumes at the nation’s community banks grew over 10% during 2020. And that’s no coincidence. With help from the Government’s Paycheck Protection Plan (PPP) Program, Commercial & Industrial (C&I) Loans accounted for more than two-thirds of that growth. But…
Two Days, Two Divergent Opinions, Who’s Right?
On Monday, March 15th, The Wall Street Journal ran a very upbeat article entitled, “U.S. Banks Will Turn Last Year’s Fear Into This Year’s Profits”. The article opines that the tens of billions of dollars that were set aside by…
Nation’s Banks, CUs Standing Strong, So Far
Coral Gables, Florida, March 17, 2021 Coral Gables, FL: BAUERFINANCIAL, Inc., the nation’s premier Bank and Credit Union rating firm, remains cautiously optimistic about the condition of our nation’s banks and credit unions. Net income was down in 2020 as…
She’s Back… What will Dr. Yellen Bring?
Note: Since this article was written, Janet Yellen was confirmed (84-15) and was sworn in as the first Female Treasury Secretary in U.S. history on Tuesday morning. The original story follows: Janet Yellen has not been confirmed yet, but we…
Loans: a Bank’s Best Asset, Until They’re Not
Although business models vary, the optimal loan to deposit ratio (LTD) at a bank is generally considered to be between 80% to 90%. At this level, the bank is lending sufficiently for its size, but not so much that its…
Diversify, Diversify, Diversify
We have been focusing quite a bit lately on commercial real estate (CRE) ghost malls and the like, and with good reason. But, imagine a scenario where a bank had 56% of its loans in CRE and another 26% in…
Changing Habits, Closing Stores
As the nation’s bank rating firm, it’s Bauer’s job to stay on top of things like Commercial Real Estate (CRE). While not automatically a sign of impending trouble, too much of anything (i.e. concentration in one type, growth, bad loans,…