- "The days of negative provisioning are pretty much dead," says D.A. Davidson's Kevin Reevey. "Now, they're going to have to take provisioning expense and build up reserves based on loan growth."
- Total bank loan loss reserves were north of $250B in Q1 2010, before falling to about $24B at the end of last year. Amid the energy crash, they edged higher in Q1. Naturally, those lenders with the most exposure to energy posted some of the largest reserve increases in Q1. "It wasn't just the levels that [oil] went to, it was the speed at which prices dropped," says Peter Guilfoile, chief credit officer at one of those banks - Comerica (NYSE:CMA). Colorado-based National Bank Holdings (NYSE:NBHC) posted the largest Q/Q increase in reserves-to-loans, jumping 39 basis points to 1.43%.
- Meanwhile, there were plenty of other banks which actually saw declines in that ratio, notably Bank of America (NYSE:BAC), Wells Fargo (NYSE:WFC), and U.S. Bancorp (NYSE:USB). These and other lenders in that bucket can thank denominator of that ratio growing quickly enough to offset reserve builds.
- Source: SNL Financial's Zach Fox and Venkatesh Iyer
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