Finance

The Rhode Island-based bank is bolstering its cash position in the face of worries about office loans, stricter capital requirements for regional lenders and the possibility of economic shock from overseas conflicts.

The $668 billion-asset company sold investment securities and certain mortgages to avoid more stringent liquidity and other federal requirements for larger banks. Yet CEO Andy Cecere says U.S. Bancorp is "not under an asset cap at all."

Charge-offs at the Detroit-based lender rose last quarter, as borrowers had a tougher time keeping up with their car payments. But so far, credit quality is staying within expectations, and company executives don't anticipate that the rest of the year will be much worse.

The Tennessee bank said a $72 million charge-off tied to a borrower in bankruptcy shaved 10 cents per share off its earnings. Management downplayed the issue, calling it "idiosyncratic," and emphasized that it was growing its loan portfolio.

The nation's second-largest bank reported strong growth in net interest income, revenue and profits. But analysts continued to express concern about unrealized losses, which swelled to $131.6 billion.

Executives of the $405 billion-asset bank say that they have completed 40% of a cost-cutting strategy begun earlier this year.

Goldman Sachs said that its partnerships with Apple and General Motors are hard to exit in the short term. So the investment banking giant is concentrating on making the deals profitable, even as it acknowledges that they may not be a long-term fit.

The movement of cash to money market funds from bank accounts will diminish lenders' ability to finance small and midsize firms, BlackRock Investment Institute said in a new paper. BlackRock and other money managers have spent much of this year readying to fill that void.

Net income was $2.06 billion in the third quarter, down 33% from a year earlier, amid sluggish banking activity, real estate write-downs and questions about whether dealmaking will rebound.

The second-largest U.S. bank says net interest income, a key source of revenue for the bank, rose 4.5% to $14.4 billion in the third quarter.