In Brief: Lenders Taking More Risks, FDIC Reports

WASHINGTON - The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. issued a report Tuesday that raises concerns about underwriting practices on construction, commercial real estate, and home equity loans.

The semiannual report said that the share of FDIC-supervised banks making speculative construction loans had crept up 1 percentage point in the six months that ended Sept. 30, to 26%.

Both the proportion of commercial real estate lenders making loans with minimal amortization terms and large balloon payments and the share of home equity lenders who made loans that pushed mortgage indebtedness above 90% of collateral value also rose 1 percentage point. The former went to 18% of the total; the latter to 13%.

Banks using high-risk underwriting practices rose to 5% from 3%, as did institutions with high potential credit risk in their overall loan portfolios. Both of these percentages are the highest since the FDIC began measuring these benchmarks two years ago.

The share of banks with overly aggressive loan growth or making significant changes in lending activities since their last exams jumped to a record 5%, from 2%.

The agency's "Report on Underwriting Practices" is available at www.fdic.gov.

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