Arkansas Bank Profits Rise Substantially In 2010

Arkansas banks’ yearly profits in 2010 jumped nearly 80 percent from a year ago as expenses and sets asides for trouble loans continue to decline, according to the FDIC’s quarterly banking profile.

  For the year ended Dec. 31, 2010, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.’s report showed that Arkansas banks earned $436 million in fiscal 2010 compared to $244 million a year ago.

On a quarterly basis, Arkansas’ 130 insured commercial banks and savings and loans earned $94 million in the three-month period ended Dec. 31, up a whopping 154 percent from a year ago.

Across the U.S., the 7,657 FDIC institutions filing year-end reports posted quarterly net income of $21.7 billion, a substantial improvement over the $1.8 billion net loss in fourth quarter 2009 and the second-highest quarterly total reported since second quarter 2007.

Insured institutions set aside $31.6 billion in provisions for loan losses in the fourth quarter, almost 50 percent less than the $62.9 billion they set aside a year earlier, FDIC statistics show.

Meanwhile, Arkansas banks added more than 600 employees to their payrolls in 2010, another sign that fortunes of financial institutions across the state are improving.