Though assets fell last year at federally chartered thrifts, the minority-owned companies among them racked up a 26% rise.
The minority thrifts ended the year with $5.9 billion of assets, according to the Office of Thrift Supervision. Included are federal savings banks and savings and loans owned by African-Americans, Asian-Americans, and Hispanics.
Assets at all 1,437 federal savings banks and savings and loans decreased 0.4%, to just under $771 billion.
The agency also reported that 92% of the minority thrifts were well capitalized, and none were undercapitalized. Moreover, 57% had Camel ratings of 1 - the highest rating - or 2. About 23% were rated 3, and none got the worst rating, 5.
Industry executives and observers attributed the rise at minority institutions to growth in their traditional business - consumer lending in minority communities - as well new kinds of business for them, such as small-business lending.
"I'm not really surprised," said John Hamilton, president of $37 million-asset Advance Federal Savings and Loan, a minority-owned thrift in Baltimore.
"Minority institutions are becoming more competitive and more aggressive in the marketplace," said Mr. Hamilton, who is chairman of the American League of Financial Institutions, a Washington-based trade group for minority-owned thrifts. "I really think that the trend will continue. The minority institutions are certainly expanding their markets - they're developing new products."
The influx of assets among these thrifts is a welcome change from years of "marginal" growth, said Dina Nichelson, the trade group's executive director, "Last year a lot of members started to turn the corner financially, and started to look at growth potential."
The number of minority-owned thrifts, a small proportion of all thrifts, decreased 2.5% last year - that is, by one, to 39 - according to OTS. The number of thrifts overall decreased 6.9%.
Like all thrifts, minority institutions struggled through the savings and loan crisis of the 1980s and the subsequent imposition of the Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery, and Enforcement Act.
Before that law there were 72 minority-owned thrifts, Ms. Nichelson said. Of those that closed, only one was associated with fraud, she said; most just couldn't survive the new regulations.
Today, the specific markets and missions of many minority-owned thrifts are contributing to their asset growth, said Thomas L. Clark Jr., chief executive officer of New York City's $363 million-asset Carver Federal Savings Bank.
"We're in neighborhoods the banks traditionally don't want to be in," said Mr. Clark, who also is vice chairman of the American League of Financial Institutions.
"There are a lot of profitable loans that come out of these communities," he said. "We've got to look at these communities as emerging areas, just like we do foreign countries. There's a tremendous potential out here."
Others have diversified somewhat from their traditional lending focus, Ms. Michelson said.
"I think it's small-business lending that's put the fire under people," she said. The minority thrifts, which tend to be small, have been slower to enter this area than some others that have focused on new lending areas, she said.
The OTS statistics on minority thrifts come from an April report to Congress on the "preservation of minority institutions." The report discussed the agency's work with minority-owned thrifts throughout the country.
