Although a major recovery in the asset markets has been witnessed in recent quarters, the outlook for the U.S. banking industry still remains in question due to several negatives, including asset-quality troubles, drawbacks of new regulations and the continuation of both residential and commercial real estate loan defaults.
After enduring extraordinary shocks in 2008, the U.S. banks entered an exceptional state of turmoil in 2009. Starting as a credit issue in the subprime segment of the mortgage market, the situation affected about the entire financial services industry, in all corners of the globe. In other words, the financial crisis ultimately morphed into a massive economic crisis, which has had major ramifications across the whole world.
Although the banking industry is dealing with liquidity and confidence challenges in 2010, it is now comparatively stable, with financial support from the U.S. government. The government had taken several steps, including programs offering capital injections and debt guarantees, to stabilize the financial system.
We believe that the worst of the credit crisis is now behind us. After more than a year of initiating the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), a lot has improved with respect to the economic crisis.
But the banking system is not yet out of the woods, as there are persistent problems that need to be addressed by the government before shifting the strategy to growth. We believe that the U.S. economy will regain its growth momentum once these issues are resolved.
While the bigger banks benefited greatly from the various programs launched by the government, many smaller banks are still in a very weak financial state, and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation's (FDIC) list of problem banks continues to grow.
Bank Failures Continue
Despite the government's strong efforts, we continue to see bank failures. Tumbling home prices, soaring loan defaults and a high unemployment rate continue to take their toll on small banks. As the industry tolerates bad loans made during the credit explosion, the trouble in the banking system goes even deeper, increasing the possibility of more bank failures.
Furthermore, government efforts have not succeeded in restoring the lending activity at the banks. Lower lending will continue to hurt margins and the overall economy, though the low interest rate environment should be beneficial to banks with a liability-sensitive balance sheet.
Out of the $247 billion given to the banks, more than half has come back from the healthy banks who have repaid their TARP funds in full. Banks have also paid about $11 billion in interest and dividends. Also, taxpayers have received decent returns on many of its financial-sector investments. Repayments under the TARP have generated a 17% annualized return from stock-warrant repurchases and $12 billion in dividend payments from dozens of banks.
Many of the major banks that have already repaid the bailout money include
JPMorgan Chase (
JPM),
Goldman Sachs (
GS),
Morgan Stanley (
MS),
BB&T (
BBT),
US Bancorp (
USB),
Bank of America (
BAC),
Wells Fargo (
WFC) and
Citigroup (
C).
Following the U.S. Treasury's appeal to the world banking system to maintain stronger capital and liquidity standards by the end of 2010 to prevent a re-run of the global financial crisis, 15 large banks that control the majority of derivative trading worldwide have committed themselves to maintaining greater transparency in the $600 trillion market, which needs stricter oversight in the interest of the global financial system.
Moreover, in mid-January 2010, the Obama Administration proposed a tax on about 50 of the nation's largest financial firms in order to recover the losses incurred by the government on its $700 billion bailout program.