More inside including reaction from Calculated Risk.
WASHINGTON—More than a tenth of U.S. banks remain at risk of failure even as some industry indicators, including credit quality, show some nascent signs of revival.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. said Tuesday that 829 of the nation's roughly 7,800 banks were on its "problem list" at the end of June, up from 775 at the end of the first three months of the year. Already 118 banks have failed this year, well ahead of the pace set last year when 140 were seized by regulators.
Lending by U.S. banks also continues to be stunted, as loan balances across all major loan categories fell during the second quarter and total loan and lease balances fell $1.3%. Total assets for the industry fell 1% to $13.2 trillion during the quarter.
FDIC Chairman Sheila Bair said banks are starting to ease their lending standards for some types of loans but warned that "lending will not pick up until businesses and consumers gain the confidence they need to hire and spend."
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The FDIC released the Q2 Quarterly Banking Profile today.
The FDIC listed 829 banks with $403 billion in assets as “problem” banks in Q2, up from 775 banks in Q1 2010, but the total assets declined from $431 billion in assets in Q1 2010.
There were 702 banks with $403 billion in assets on the list at the end of 2009.
Note: Not all problem banks will fail - and not all failures will be from the problem bank list - but this shows the problem is significant and still growing.
The Unofficial Problem Bank List shows 840 problem banks with $410 billion in assets - the difference is timing of releases of formal actions (or hints of pending actions).