Quarterly home lending activity was up by more than a fifth at U.S. banks, while earnings soared to an all-time high.
Federally insured banks closed
$210.2 billion in residential loans during the three months ended June 30. The total included first liens, second liens and lines of credit.
The mortgage origination statistics were provided to Mortgage Daily by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. based on activity at the 940 largest banks.
Business
significantly improved compared to the first quarter, when FDIC-insured financial institutions originated $173.7 billion.
Activity also soared from the second-quarter 2014, a period that saw $163.9 billion in bank mortgage production.
So far this year, banks have originated
$383.8 billion.
Second-quarter 2015
production included $113.6 billion in retail originations and $96.6 billion in wholesale fundings.
The origination data was provided in conjunction with
the FDIC’s Quarterly Banking Profile Second Quarter 2015.
Banks owned $1.8800 trillion in one-to-four family residential loans as of the latest period. Home-equity lines of credit totaled
$0.4779 trillion.
In addition, commercial mortgage assets totaled $1.1757 trillion, while construction-and-development loans ended the period at $0.2558 trillion.
Bank net income was $43 billion in the second-quarter, more than $40 billion in each of the prior and year-earlier quarters and “the highest quarterly income on record.”
The report indicated that there were 6,348 banks as of June 30, fewer than the 6,509 as of the end of last year. The most-recent number reflected 5,472 commercial banks and 876 savings institutions.
So far this year, just five banks have failed — including just one in the second quarter — putting the sector on track to see fewer than the 18 bank failures for all of 2014.
As of June 30, there were 228 institutions classified as “problem,” down from 291 six months earlier.
There were 2,042,386 full-time employees on staff at the nation’s banks, off from 2,042,688 three months earlier and 2,059,827 a year earlier.