“Earnings benefited from lower expenses for loan-loss provisions, goodwill impairment, and payrolls,” the FDIC said. “A majority of banks – 57.5 percent – reported year-over-year increases in quarterly earnings, and only 6.8 percent of banks were unprofitable, down from 8.4 percent a year ago. This is the lowest proportion of unprofitable institutions since first quarter 2006.”
Lastly, the number of so-called problem banks, or institutions at risk of failure, has declined to 354 from 411 – the smallest number of problem institutions since the end of the first quarter of 2009 and 60% below the most recent peak of 888 problem institutions at the end of the first quarter for 2011.
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Max Chen contributed to this article.