The Look Ahead
Published August 1, 2011 11:00 PM
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Updated September 12, 2011 8:36 AM
1 Min Read
Cart Before the Horse
"This economy will eventually come back, and it will be corporate-led, not consumer-led, which is unusual."
Richard Davis, chairman and CEO, U.S. Bancorp (Image: Bloomberg News)
Bank executives delivered a checklist of hot topics for the rest of the year in their recent wrap-ups of results from the second quarter. Among the pivotal questions will be: Is business spending driving a recovery? Are banks cutting expenses enough? Can lenders balance the imperative for loan growth and the need to avoid dumb risks?
Putting It Bluntly
"Expenses are too high for this environment."
William H. Rogers, CEO, SunTrust Banks Inc.
It's About More Than Margins
"We have profits, and we have clients. So the clients are the same as deposits. We don't want to turn them away [to improve net interest margins] if they're good clients."
Jamie Dimon, chairman and CEO, JPMorgan Chase & Co. (Image: Bloomberg News)
No Worries Here
"Others said they weren't going to go a dime above the 7% [capital buffer]. We've always been aiming at 8% to 9%."
Vikram Pandit, CEO, Citigroup Inc. (Image: Bloomberg News)
Chris J. Ratcliffe/Bloomberg
Accentuate the Positive
"The sheer amount of capital we have, if you just step back and think about it compared to where we were 12 months ago or 24 months ago, is quite high."
Brian Moynihan, CEO,Bank of America Corp. (Image: Bloomberg News)
David Paul Morris/Bloomberg
A Costly Armory
"We're sitting on almost $90 billion of liquidity … We're not even earning the cost of our deposits on that. So I mean, we have some real dry powder here."
John Stumpf, Chairman and CEO, Wells Fargo & Co. (Image: Bloomberg News)
Grinding It Out
"Based on our success in adding clients and improved demand, we saw strong commercial loan growth of $2 billion in the quarter."
James Rohr, chairman and CEO, PNC Financial Services Group Inc. (Image: Bloomberg News)
Optimistic Forecast
"We still do expect excess liquidity to dissipate in the second half of the year with loan trends turning positive."
Beth Acton, chief financial officer, Comerica Inc.
Read My Lips
"Increase in risk will be 0" in pursuit of commercial loan growth.
Kelly King, chairman and CEO of BB&T Corp. (Image: Bloomberg News)
Translation: We Plan to Raise Fees
"We intend to increase the hurdles … for our checking accounts. We certainly have under consideration specific charges around debit cards themselves. And our implementation of that will occur between now and year-end. … It's just too early to call what the customer reaction will be."
O.B. Grayson Hall, CEO of Regions Financial Corp.
