Deposits

The industry was well positioned in terms of net worth before the pandemic and recession, but some institutions could run into issues with sluggish earnings and a surge in deposits.

Industry figures have begun to speak out in support of demonstrations in the wake of the deaths of George Floyd and other African Americans, and new data is expected to show how the coronavirus impacted balance sheets.

Past is not prologue, and a successful strategy for becoming a top-performing bank in 2020 is very different from what it might have been just six months ago.

Even after the Fed eased some limitations in April to promote emergency lending, the bank has had to make some “tough choices” to heed the $1.95 trillion growth ceiling set by regulators in the aftermath of its phony-accounts scandal.

The economic contraction caused by the coronavirus pandemic has been worse than the Wall Street firm had modeled two months ago, its president John Waldron said Wednesday.

The bank is trying to recover millions of dollars in returned deposits. It also has a $14 million loan to the company that allegedly conducted the scheme.

Recent tweaks to Reg D have blurred the line between checking and savings accounts, opening up the possibility for new innovation in those products.

Bracing for a prolonged economic slowdown, many community bankers say they are considering a number of belt-tightening measures, including freezing salaries and delaying investments in technology and product development, according to a survey by Promontory Interfinancial Group.

Congress authorized the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. to intervene if the pandemic caused a liquidity scare, but nearly two months later deposits are through the roof and the agency has not acted on the expanded authority.

The Federal Reserve also said in a supervisory report released Friday that it would conduct stress tests this quarter as planned, taking into account sudden deterioration in the economy brought on by the coronavirus pandemic.