Bank Chiefs Curb Lending Despite TARP, Survey Says

Even as a new report Friday found faults in the government’s financial bailout, a survey of bank chief executives conducted by UBS was raising its own questions about whether the Troubled Asset Relief Program is having the desired effect.

In a report headlined “What C.E.O.’s of Top 100 Banks Think,” UBS analysts led by Matthew O’Connor summarized the results of the firm’s fourth annual survey of the chief executives of the 100 largest banks in the United States.

Most chief executives said that they will continue to tighten lending standards and slash credit lines to consumers in the new year. It was just the latest sign that the TARP has done little to encourage bank lending, as many in Washington hoped it would.

Economists, investors and lawmakers are concerned that continued contraction in the credit markets could prolong the recession in the United States and dash any hopes of a quick economic recovery.

The anonymous survey by UBS found that most bank chiefs fear that the worst is yet to come in the credit market debacle and are expecting to get hit with billions of dollars of losses tied to bad loans made years ago.

The banking chieftains generally believe that net charge-offs, which is a measure of debt, such as credit-card debt, that is deemed uncollectible; and nonperforming assets, which are loans or leases that are not meeting their stated principal and interest payments, are both expected to peak in 2009.

That has made banks leery of dishing out more loans to businesses and consumers. About 85 percent of the banks surveyed said they plan to tighten lending standards on commercial real estate and construction loans, while 55 percent planned to tighten commercial and industrial underwriting — both important for stimulating economic growth.

They are also being tight-fisted on the consumer side: 45 percent of chief executives said they will tighten their standards on home equity lines of credit, while 55 percent will tighten their standards on consumer loans. Getting a house will be a bit tougher, too, even if one has great credit, as 38 percent expect to tighten standards for prime mortgages.

Congress may be especially interested in knowing that only one of the banks surveyed said it would use the money received from the TARP to accelerate lending. A total of 45 percent of the chief executives answered that they would likely use TARP to cushion their capital base, while 15 percent stated they would use TARP to fund acquisitions. Only 20 percent planned to use the capital to maintain loan growth.

Lawmakers have been reluctant to authorize the remaining $350 billion of TARP funds to banks unless they showed how they would use the money to prevent foreclosures and spur lending. But even with the government’s cash infusions, banks are apparently still afraid that sins made in the past will catch up with them this year.

The authors of the report said that many of the chief executives they spoke with “believe it is inevitable that most banks will need to raise capital at some point” to cover future losses.

As long as banks think that their capital cushions are inadequate, they may continue to hang back from making new loans, no matter how much urging they get from Washington.

– Cyrus Sanati