By: Tom Hannagan
Part 3
I believe it is quite important to compare your bank or your investment plans in a financial institution to the results of peer group averages. Not all banks are the same, believe it or not. In this column, we use the averages. Again, look for the differences in your target institution. About half of them beat certain performance numbers, while the other half are naturally worse. It can tell a useful story.
This continues the updated review of results from the Uniform Bank Performance Reports (UBPR), courtesy of the FDIC, for 2008. The UBPR is based on the quarterly required Call Reports submitted by insured banks. The FDIC compiles peer averages for various bank size groupings. Here are the findings for the two largest groups that cover 494 reporting banks. I wanted to see how the various profit performance components compare to the costs of credit risk discussed in my previous post. It is even more apparent than it was in early 2008 that banks still have a ways to go to be fully pricing loans for both expected and unexpected risk.
Peer Group 1 (PG1) is made up of the largest 189 reporting banks or those with over $3 billion in average total assets for 2008. Interest income was 5.25 percent of average total assets for the period. This is down, as we might expect, based on last year’s decline in the general level of interest rates from 6.16 percent in 2007. Net Interest Expense was also down from 2.98 percent in 2007 to 2.06 percent average for the year. Net Interest Margin, the difference between the two metrics, was down from 3.16 percent in 2007 to 3.11 percent as a percentage of total assets.
It should be noted that Net Interest Margins have been in a steady, chronic decline for at least 10 years, with a torturous regular drop of 2 to 5 basis points per annum in recent years. Last year’s drop of five basis points is in line with that progression and it does add to continuing difficulty in generating bottom-line profits.
To find out a bit more about why margins dropped, especially in light of the steady increase in lending over the same past decade, we looked first at loan pricing yields. For PG1 these averaged 6.12 percent for 2008, down (again, expectedly) from 7.32 percent in 2007. This is a drop of 120 basis points or a decline of 16 percent. Meanwhile, rates paid on interest-earning deposits dropped from 3.41 percent in 2007 to 2.39 percent in 2008. This 102 basis point decline represents a 30 percent lower interest expense on interest-bearing deposits. Based only on these two metrics, it seems like margins should have improved and not declined for these banks.
Check my next blog for more on the reasons for Peer Group 1’s drop in margins and an analysis of the fee income and operating expenses for these institutions.