Worcester’s $534 million-asset community bank Bay State Savings Bank announced a new team of executives this month, with bullish ambitions for growth, but are these dreams warranted given an interest rate environment that’s pressuring banks?
As one of only five Massachusetts banks with less than $100 million in assets to survive in the competitive world of Massachusetts banking, Millbury National Bank is focusing on lines of business it already knows well.
The recently passed Dodd-Frank relief package will put banks with less than $10 billion in assets under a much simpler capital framework, giving these smaller institutions reprieve from a global regulatory system that many argue was never intended for them.
Credit card charge-offs are sky-rocketing at small banks. According to media reports, charge-off rates have hit 7.2 percent on average during the fourth quarter for banks with $10.4 billion or less in assets. That level is up from 4.5 percent one year ago.
Yesterday’s release of meeting minutes from the Federal Open Market Committee’s July 25-26 meeting garnered plenty of headlines due to the dialogue between FOMC members suggesting a rate increase in December may not be as certain as some had initially thought. But smaller banks were not left out the FOMC’s discussion.
