Parkside Bank withdraws application for TARP funds - St. Louis Business Journal:

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& Trust reversed its plans to seek $1.7 milliobn in loans under the Troubled AssetRelief Program. “We’rr withdrawing our TARP application because of the political rancortoward banks,” said Jim chief executive. “Now every bank is a even though the federal governmenr originally encouraged us to take theTARP money.” To five area banks — , , , and have received a total of $438.3 million in TARP St.
Louis bankers feel they have acte responsibly, unlike many larger financial institutionws — mostly on Wall Street — that are responsiblew for the financial failuresand “You hear the president, members of his administration, Congress and the news mediza describe banks as the cause and root evil of everything that is goingg wrong,” said Jerry Von Rohr, chairman and chiefc executive of . “What angers most community bankers is that we had no major part in but we are suffering the same as thosedwho did.” Von Rohr was upset enough to send a letter last week to President Obama. “Mr.
President, in the futurew it would be beneficial if you and your administrationj would distinguish between Wall Street and the thousandsw of FDIC insured banks throughout our he wrote. “Failing to make this distinctioh is dramatically undermining the confidence of our banking system and the foundatiob on which our economic recovery must be Tom Chulick, St. Louis chairman of UMB, a regional said, “The federal government talk s down banking and fails to make the distinction between thosre who have maintained prudent credit standardd and those whohave not. The Reliances and UMBs weren’ t the ones creating these problems.
” Chulick notesx that most of the giant financial institutions with the outsizefdproblems aren’t even banks in the traditiona sense. “Mortgage banks have ‘bank’ in their name, but they aren’r really banks. They are processors,” he “Investment banks have ‘bank’ in their name, but they don’ take in deposits or make loans. They create synthetic Half of U.S. foreclosures last year were limited to 35 primarilyin California, Las Vegas, south Florida and Washington, D.C.
, according to an analysis by USA Todagy published March 6, and it was only the collapse of big financial institutions that spread the pain to everh nook and cranny. “The community banks did not get involverdin fee-income products such as mortgage-backed securitieds and subprime loans,” said Jim St. Louis president of . The lament heard almos daily is that economic recovery is being hampered becausebanks aren’t Local bankers also dispute that St.
Louis banks, like most banka nationally, are lending to qualified borrowers, said Tony chief executive of , and it was the federalk government’s insistence on lending to unqualified borrowers that caused much ofthe “The federal government insisted that everyone had to be a homeowner. that didn’t work out.” In addition to what they view as unfair depictions oftheir banks, the local bankerw are braced for large increasesd in their insurance premiums as a result of bank failurezs nationally. Banks throughout the country fund the and that’s as it should be, the bankerw said.
But because the losses have been sohigh lately, the amoungt they have to pay this year is unusuallg large, which will further dampen profits. At , with $510 million in assets as of Dec. 31, the total assessment last year was said PresidentVince Coleman. Althouggh the final assessments haven’t been set for this year, this year’sa total could be 10 times thatamount — $1.4 millionm — including quarterly assessments and a one-time special assessment. “Anf we don’t have anything to offse t that,” Coleman said.
“I woulds have normally paid $30,000, but it will be $200,009 this year — and I’m a little bank,” said Wagner at with $108 million in assets as of Dec. 31.