First BanCorp in Puerto Rico Freed from FDIC Consent Order

First BanCorp in San Juan, Puerto Rico, has been released from a consent order with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.

The $12.7 billion-asset company said in a press release Thursday that the order had been in place since June 2010.

The order's termination reflects "our improved performance and our team's dedication and determination to improving our franchise capital position, asset quality and profitability," Aurelio Aleman, First BanCorp's president and chief executive, said in the release.

First BanCorp received the consent order after suffering crippling credit losses around the same time that three banks in Puerto Rico collapsed.

The lifting of the order represents another positive development for the once-troubled bank. In December, the Treasury Department sold a fifth of its stake in the company, which had been in place since 2009 when First BanCorp accepted $424 million from the Troubled Asset Relief Program.

In February, First BanCorp bought 10 bank branches, a $325 million mortgage book and $625 million in deposits that had belonged to the failed Doral Bank.

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