Lending remains behind pre-recession levels

Enlarge

Dennis McCoy | Sacramento Business Journal

Staff Silicon Valley Business Journal

While the lending environment for U.S. banks has shown moderate improvement lately, total loan balances for all banks in the third quarter were $154.2 billion less than in 2008, according to a report by theFederal Deposit Insurance Corp.
During that time frame, loans at banks with assets of less than $1 billion grew by $28.4 billion, or .7 percent annually, while loan balances for banks with more than $1 billion in assets decreased by $182.8 billion, or .4 percent.
At the same time, total assets for all banks grew by nearly $1.3 trillion, or 1.9 percent.
Much of that asset growth came from securities, or investments, that banks buy and hold. And those securities could pose a problem for banks in the future, according to the FDIC’s Supervisory Insights report. More and more of those purchased securities are long-term [five years or longer], and the FDIC said they could be problematic as interest rates rise in the future.

Next Article: Apple fined by Taiwan FTC over iPhone price fixing