BankerGirl

Posted by Heidi on February 27th, 2008 in banking, work

My bank lowered our deposit rates yet again at today’s weekly ALCO meeting (Asset-Liability Committee for all of you non-bankers). 

This is the third time in six weeks we’ve dropped our rates 50 basis points or more.   And we’re still seeing the deposits roll in at an alarming rate - people are moving out of riskier investments and into our CD specials. 

It’s an awful time to be living on just social security and interest income, as so many of our lower-tier retirees are.   And Bernanke’s most recent remarks lead me to believe that we’ve got a long way to go before things start to improve.  He didn’t really tell us anything that we didn’t already know, I just hope that he’s right about energy prices stabilizing. 

On the asset side of the balance sheet, our loans are performing extremely well compared to industry benchmarks, but we’re seeing credit quality erode just a bit (average FICOs are down 10 points, default rates are on the rise). 

I heard on the radio last night (I have no idea wether the source is credible or not) that several banks are on the brink of bankruptcy.  Thank goodness the financial institution I work for is incredibly risk-adverse and didn’t enter the sub-prime fray.

Stumble it!