Finance

A few months ago bankers were more hopeful than confident about an end to depressed demand for business credit. Now CEOs at Huntington, Fifth Third, Mercantile Bank and other companies are touting strong fourth-quarter loan growth, burgeoning pipelines and local job creation as reasons for optimism.

Loans to car sellers plummeted earlier in the pandemic due to chip shortages that hampered vehicle production. But supply improvements since last fall have fueled the start of a rebound.

The Alabama company continues to explore buyouts of add-on businesses, part of a strategy that has already helped recoup dollars lost as a result of reforms to its overdraft practices.

The Financial Services Information Sharing and Analysis Center has created a forum to let technology vendors provide security updates to their bank clients. Whether more steps need to be taken is a matter of debate.

JPMorgan Chase raised Chief Executive Jamie Dimon’s total compensation 10% to $34.5 million for his work in 2021, the firm’s most profitable year on record.

Fourth-quarter profits rose 10% at the Cleveland company as investment banking income hit a record and nonperforming loans plummeted. Executives say charge-offs will probably start rising in late 2022 but that fee income from capital markets transactions will keep growing.

The Buffalo, New York, bank is tweaking its loan mix and reducing some deposits in interest-bearing accounts. It says the moves should boost its net interest margin, which has declined in almost every quarter since the start of the pandemic.

Executives predict a 5% to 6% bump in lending this year, and they also say they'd be comfortable if up to a third of the Cincinnati company's excess cash migrates away.

The Tennessee bank reported an uptick in commercial lending during the fourth quarter. Executives pointed to the impact of a 2020 acquisition that allowed First Horizon to bulk up in in Florida, Georgia and Louisiana.

Costs climbed 11% in the fourth quarter, but the Georgia company says it remains on track to generate $175 million by the end of this year through a combination of expense cuts and revenue enhancements.