JC700

U.S. Bancorp Is Taking Fed's Advice to Lend Aggressively

Its funny this article claims U.S. Bancorp was so aggressive with lending, yet every other place claims the opposite. Even the graph posted here shows they have very little for total volume compared to the other banks.

Plus even the former head of U.S. Bancorp said this:
"Banks get themselves in trouble not because they don't grow fast enough, but because they grow too fast and don't understand the businesses they are in. … I think you control risk by getting into businesses that you understand, not following the crowd. Bankers tend to follow each other," he said.

"We decided that the subprime business was something we didn't want to engage in in a big way. … We did some subprime lending, but not to the extent anyone else or many others did," Mr. Grundhofer said. "It's another good example of having the discipline to look at your businesses, seeing if they give you the kinds of returns you like — and you like that risk profile. … We were very disciplined. Whether it was in acquisitions, whether it was in business lines, we were a very disciplined group of men and women, and that's a legacy that I'm proud of, and it's still being executed at U.S. Bank today."


www.americanbanker.com...