Tag Archives: Banks

U.S. banks' can expect their long-term business strategies to continue to be affected by the "lower-for-longer" interest rate environment that Fed officials have placed the industry in.

U.S. banking institutions that are insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC) earned an aggregate net income of $43.0 billion in the second quarter of 2015, up $2.9 billion from a year ago, the FDIC announced in their Quarterly Banking Profile released Wednesday. The $43.0 billion second quarter profits, the highest quarterly income on record, was mostly driven by a $3.6 billion rise in net operating revenue, the FDIC said.

Banks reported stronger demand for mortgage loans and eased lending standards in a number of categories, suggesting positive growth in the second half of the year, according to the Federal Reserve July 2015 Senior Loan Officer Opinion Survey on Bank Lending Practices.

Financial products and services offered by banks are being issued on a a very limited basis due to regulatory compliance burdens. According to the American Bankers Association’s 2015 Survey of Bank Compliance Officers, a total of 46.3 percent of respondents said their bank had cut offerings

Regulators are hindering much-needed competition in the banking industry and placing consumers and taxpayers at risk, according to a report released on Thursday from the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) titled "A Bird in the Hand and No Banks in the Bush." The report also noted that this lack of competition in banking furthers the same too-big-to-fail rationale that led to past bank bailouts.

Wells Fargo's noninterest income for Q1, $10.3 billion, was an increase of $29 million from the previous quarter. The bank received higher income from trading activities, debt security gains, mortgage origination gains, and insurance, which were offset by lower other income, such as from mortgage servicing (which were $108 million for Q1, compared to $235 million for the previous quarter).