Author: BauerFinancial | Page 34

Financial symbols of a key a dollar sign and gold stars

New Credit Union Star-Ratings This Week

The National Credit Union Administration (NCUA) released mostly positive year-end 2018 financial data on Wednesday (March 6th). The aggregate capital ratio for all federally-insured credit unions increased to 11.30% – up from 10.95% a year earlier. Over 98% reported a…

Person squeezing a stress ball re: no need to stress, new bank star ratings

All New BANK Star-Ratings This Week

By most measures, 2018 was a good year for U.S. banks. After earning $59.1 billion in the fourth quarter, net income for the calendar year was $236.7 billion. That was 44% higher than 2017 net income. However, after adjusting for…

Animated man bent over under the burden of household debt

Household Debt 6.9% Higher than 2008 Peak

At $13.54 trillion, consumer debt today is $869 billion higher than its 2008 peak of $12.68 trillion. It is 21.4% higher than its 2013 trough (see chart). Housing is not the culprit this time around. Based on a recent report…

President Lincoln next to an image of a check from the 1800s

President Lincoln Could Have Banked Here

The past couple of weeks we have been concentrating on banks and credit unions that are struggling. Between that, and the new mega-merger announcement between BB&T and SunTrust (February 7th) that we will get into later, we thought this was…

Bankers Challenge Credit Union Buyouts

At first glance, a federally-insured credit union may not appear to be much different from a federally-insured bank. Both carry the same deposit guarantees, backed by the federal government and both often offer similar deposit and loan products. The primary…

Troubled Banks: The Long Goodbye

Even though there are fewer banks rated 2-Star or below than there have been since 2007, there are still too many (83 to be exact) to list on page 7. Instead we listed all banks rated 1-Star or Zero-Stars OR…

Community Banks Wanted sign hanging from a clothes line

Wanted: New Community Banks

In spite of efforts to encourage more de novo bank applications, only seven new banks were chartered last year. In fact, to demonstrate how difficult the environment is… of the 70 banks that have been opened in the past ten…

XY Graph with one upward trending arrow and one more flat

Government Shutdown Trumps Economic Gains

The Federal Reserve’s Beige Book is a survey of opinions. While qualitative in nature, those surveyed do tend to have their fingers on the pulse of their part of the country. The latest Beige Book was based on information collected…

Consumer Debt: the Good, the Bad and the Scary

We promised last week that we would be paying close attention to consumer debt this year, and what better time to begin. The Federal Reserve conveniently just released its Consumer Credit statistics report for last November. This latest release shows…

2018: The Highlights and the Lowlights

Taking a look back at the year that just ended can sometimes give us a glimpse at what’s to come. We’re not sure that’s a good thing this time around but as they say, “forewarned is forearmed”. The first warnings…

Author: BauerFinancial (page 34)

New Credit Union Star-Ratings This Week

All New BANK Star-Ratings This Week

Household Debt 6.9% Higher than 2008 Peak

President Lincoln Could Have Banked Here

Bankers Challenge Credit Union Buyouts

Troubled Banks: The Long Goodbye

Wanted: New Community Banks

Government Shutdown Trumps Economic Gains

Consumer Debt: the Good, the Bad and the Scary

2018: The Highlights and the Lowlights

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