The Banking System Seems to be Dividing: Large Versus Small

The last three months have seen more and more weakness in the smaller commercial banks in the United States. Last month I ask the question, “Is A Crunch Coming for the Smaller Banks?” (http://seekingalpha.com/article/229385-is-a-crunch-coming-for-smaller-banks)

This month things continued to decline amongst the smaller banks while the largest 25 banks in the country really seemed to expand.

Over the past four weeks ending Wednesday October 27, the biggest 25 banks in the country saw their assets increase by almost $94 billion while the assets at the smaller banks rose by only about $8 billion; but the cash assets at the smaller banks rose by almost $19 billion.

Over the past quarter, the total assets at the larger domestically chartered banks increased by a little less than $20 billion while the assets at the smaller banks actually declined by about $9 billion. Cash assets at the smaller commercial banks rose by over $33 billion during this time.

Loans and leases at the smaller commercial banks have fallen by $14 billion over the last four weeks and by almost $32 billion over the last 13-week period. And, where has most of this decline come from? Commercial real estate loans!

This is, of course, is where many analysts, including Elizabeth Warren, have predicted the trouble would come from until the end of 2011 or so. Warren even stated in congressional testimony that there were some 3,000 commercial banks that were going to face severe problems in the commercial real estate area as these loans either matured and had to be re-financed or went into a delinquent status.

Over the past four-week period, commercial real estate loans at the smaller banks fell by almost $10 billion. Over the past 13-week period, these loans dropped by over $23 billion.

Looking back over the past year ending in September, commercial real estate loans at the smaller commercial banks declined by $74 billion, with half of the decline coming in the last six months.

The decline in assets at the smaller commercial banks is coming exactly where Warren and others warned they would come. But these banks also moved more and more into cash assets during this time indicating a very risk averse position. Over the past thirteen weeks the smaller banks did exactly the opposite of what their larger competitors did: the smaller banks added $33 billion to their cash asset portfolios while the bigger institutions reduced their cash by $30 billion.

The largest 25 banks are still not aggressively pursuing loans. But, their securities portfolios continue to increase. Over the last four weeks, securities held by the largest banks in the country increased by almost $32 billion while they rose by almost $60 billion over the past 13-week period.

This behavior is also exhibited over the last twelve months, ending in September 2010. During this period, large commercial banks increased their securities portfolio by almost $125 billion while their portfolio of Commercial and Industrial loans fell by almost $80 billion and their portfolio of real estate loans dropped by $41 billion.

Some of the financing of these securities came from the cash assets of these large banks which declined by almost $70 billion during this time period. The largest supplier of new funds to these institutions came from something called “Borrowings from Others”. In essence, the larger banks seem to be playing an arbitrage game. They are borrowing short and buying long term securities. The risk to them seems minimal since the Federal Reserve is keeping short term interest rates exceedingly low for “an extended time.” An “extended time” seems to go well into next year.

The largest commercial banks are going to do just fine. They will continue to get stronger and bigger in the future.

The smaller banks continue to struggle. The problem here is that we, the public, really don’t have a handle on how serious the situation is with respect to the solvency of the smaller commercial banks in the banking system.

The “surprise” sale of Wilmington Trust last week took most people by surprise, even the very astute analysts. (See http://seekingalpha.com/article/234027-wilmington-trust-sold-at-45-discount.) Here is a bank known for its conservatism and, in addition, it was solidly producing earnings through its trust department. Yet, the bank had failed to really report the truth about its loan portfolio. Here is a bank, roughly around $10 billion in asset size with bad assets totaling around one billion dollars. How could this happen without someone knowing about it?

How many more commercial banks like Wilmington Trust are out there?

Bankers…lenders…do not like to admit that they have bad loans. In general, they postpone reporting bad loans until it is too late for them…and their shareholders.

Elizabeth Warren said that there were about 3,000 commercial banks in the banking system that were going to face serious strains over their commercial real estate loan portfolio and their construction loan portfolio.

Recent data indicate that large dollar amounts of commercial real estate loans are leaving the balance sheets of the smaller commercial banks in the United States. It would appear as if more and more of these bad assets are being recognized and removed from the banks’ balance sheets.

More and more people are calling for commercial banks to recognize their bad assets so that the United States can start to grow again. I believe that more and more people are realizing that a strong economic recovery is not possible until something is done about these bad assets…until they are written off the balance sheets of the commercial banks.

One of the problems that the Obama team is really going to have to deal with soon is to appoint some people to provide economic and regulatory advice and administration. On the economic side, only Tim Geithner at Treasury and Austan Goolesbee at the President’s Council of Economic Advisors are in place. On the regulatory side connected to depository institutions, only “Bubble” Ben will be in place by the middle of next year. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency has an acting head. I was at a banking conference last week and there was talk that Sheila Bair, Chair of the FDIC is expected to leave next year and does not want to be re-appointed. The Office of Thrift Supervision is merging into the OCC and the top people are looking elsewhere for leadership. Many leadership positions are empty.

One could almost say there is little or no leadership at the top in Washington, D. C. when it comes to economics and banking.

And yet, 2011 could be a crucial year in American history for determining the future of the structure of the financial system.