The number of federally insured banks in business continued to diminish — as did mortgage originations, assets and employees. Earnings and commercial mortgage holdings, however, grew.
There were 6,589 active banks as of the third quarter, fewer than the 6,656 financial institutions in the second quarter and 6,891 in the third-quarter 2013.
Commercial banks represented 5,705 of the third-quarter count, and savings institutions made up another 884.
The figures were outlined in the Quarterly Banking Profile from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.
Problem institutions numbered 329, improving from 354 in the prior three-month period. Assets held by the problem group were $102 million.
Fourteen banks failed in the third quarter, doubling from three months earlier.
There were 570 banks with an asset concentration in mortgages.
Residential loan originations totaled $157 billion, slipping from the second-quarter’s $164 billion.
Business was way off compared to the $317 billion in originations during the third-quarter 2013.
Bankers, themselves, blamed excessive regulations for the slowdown.
“It’s painfully clear that new regulatory requirements have restrained mortgage lending and have made it particularly difficult for first-time homebuyers,” American Bankers Association Chief Economist James Chessen said in a written statement. “The complex and liability-laden maze of compliance has made originations very hard to make, especially to borrowers with little or weak credit history.”
In the first nine months of 2014, banks funded $455 billion in home loans.
Retail originators generated $90 billion of the most-recent quarter’s business, and the wholesale portion was $67 billion.
One-to-four family residential mortgage holdings were $1.8382 trillion as of the third quarter. Holdings declined from $1.8449 trillion in the previous period and $1.8426 trillion in the year-earlier period.
Banks owned $0.4962 trillion in home-equity lines of credit, trimming their investments from $0.4992 trillion at the end of the second quarter.
The decline in HELOC holdings accelerated when compared to the $0.5167 trillion held as of the same point in 2013.
Banks also owned $0.2306 trillion in construction-and-development loans.
Commercial mortgages owned were $1.1332 trillion. Banks collectively grew their commercial real estate loan portfolio from $1.1255 trillion at the end of June. CRE assets were $1.0925 trillion as of Sept. 30, 2013.
As of the most-recent period, 2,048,639 people were employed at banks.
Staffing subsided from 2,060,003 as of the second quarter and 2,080,370 as of the third-quarter 2013.
Banks earned $39 billion during the three months ended Sept. 30, 2014. Total net income improved from $36 billion in the same three-month period last year.
“Margins remain under pressure in this low interest rate environment,” FDIC Chairman Martin J. Gruenberg said in the report. “Institutions have responded by extending asset maturities, which raises concerns about interest-rate risk.”
