Harry Terris

The latest monthly reports from credit card issuers provide more evidence that loss rates will stay abnormally low longer than thought just a few months ago.

Margin compression once again overpowered loan growth in the first quarter, sapping banks’ traditional source of revenue.

In three years of “say-on-pay” votes since Dodd-Frank, investors have widely acquiesced to double-digit increases in bank executive compensation.

Small banks’ perch in small-business lending is being steadily eroded by large, credit-card issuing competitors.

Median bank chief executive pay raises slowed from the year before but look healthy compared with stagnant revenues and languishing stock prices.

B of A just recorded its lowest provision for buybacks of bad mortgages in years, and JPMorgan Chase has been reducing its reserves, but most claims from private investors are unresolved.

Credit card delinquencies ticked down in March, and releases of reserves for loan losses boosted first quarter profits.

Share buybacks have been dormant at big banks and dividends remain slim, but capital payouts are gaining momentum after this winter’s stress tests.

Bankers pointed to still-tepid credit demand as lending lost momentum in the first quarter, and worries over deteriorating standards and pricing.

There were more deals announced in the Midwest than in any other U.S. region last year.

Analysts are skeptical lenders can cut overhead fast enough to keep up with a projected collapse in mortgage volume. Some banks are intent on taking a bigger piece of the pie.

A breakdown of M&A deals by bank size and by region, along with American Banker's semi-annual ranking of deal advisers.

For banks looking to poach customers disaffected by mergers among rivals, there is plenty of opportunity. More than 20% of deposits have changed hands recently in about 50 markets around the country.

Receiving Wide Coverage ...Good Euros and Bad Euros: The accomplished fact of losses for large depositors to resolve Cyprus' insolvent banks rippled through markets, newspapers and the commentariat. German Chancellor Angela Merkel's hard line against the offshore banking haven prevailed, but fresh worries that depositors in other countries with weak banks might flee reinvigorated doubts about the viability of the euro. An interview in the FT with Eurogroup President Jeroen Dijsselbloem was a focal point. He said that now that financial markets have achieved a state of relative calm, losses for bank creditors instead of taxpayer bailouts are in order. Later he appeared to walk back those remarks, saying rescue deals should be tailored to specific situations.

Big banks reversed a buildup in long-dated bonds over the last two quarters, a reassuring development amid worries that they might “reach for yield.”

The upswing in acquisition announcements lately has been unaccompanied by the spiral of rising deal and trading multiples that attended waves of mergers in the past.

Firms have continued to plow money into bank deposits, but high liquidity ratios appear to be more a continuation of trends in place since the 1980s than a reaction to the financial crisis.

Large bank holding companies have positioned themselves aggressively for a rise in interest rates, based on levels of short-term assets and liabilities. Smaller holding companies have not.

Median deposits per branch have jumped significantly since 2007 for many banks.

An analysis of mortgage origination volume and revenue at five big banks.