IRA continuously assesses and adapts our analysis and reporting engine as part of our effort to stay abreast of  an ever evolving U.S. economy.  Users of the IRA Bank Monitor received a number of in-line upgrades to the reports appearing in their subscriptions earlier this week.  We have added another one.

IRA has activated qualitative indications to show whether banks are SUPERIOR, AVERAGE, or INFERIOR with respect to their asset class peers with regards to their preparedness to absorb market risks; more specifically, interest rate and/or other systemic economic scenario risks.  These are a group of risk measurements indicating the ability of a bank to absorb  external shocks by either building buffers against or pruning exposures to such shocks.  These old Basel One era risk measures have been relatively benign for a number of years but changes in the forces surrounding the economy now seem to make it prudent that IRA's Bank Monitor begin tracking the positioning of banks to maintain these buffers in good order in case they are needed.  These measures augment IRA's Basel III Capital testing and Basel II Op Risk testing modules.

This upgrade appears in all versions of the IRA Bank Monitor including the Professional IRA Bank Monitor, the IRABankRatings.com Unlimited-Use subscription service, and the IRABankRatings.com Shopping Cart.

Institutional Risk Analytics continuously updates our reports to to keep pace with changing business decision needs of our customers.  We have added the following new reporting items to our standard reports,

Simple Liquidity Test

This is a simple ratio cash, coin and cash equivalents to total deposits that several of you have been asking for.  It gives a simplistic estimate of the bank's ability to pay demand depositors in the event of a run on deposits.  This is a rather old measure going back to the bank runs of the 1930's.  We of course also display a short term Acid Test which is more relevant to vendors and creditors as well an Asset-Liability test based on two illustrative stress scenarios to help counterparties assess the safety of their assets.

Derivative Leverage Analysis

This new test computes the leverage ratio of the notional to fair value envelope for traded derivatives at a bank.  It augments IRA's unrealized loss cushion test that reports on how much of the bank's derivatives need to be lost to burn through the instituions risk based capital.

Subsidiaries Lists for Bank Holding Companies

This list always appeared in the Professional version of our product but was inadvertently omitted from the IRABankRatings.com display version.  It has been added back.  For our IRABankRatings.com Unlimited-Use customers, you can click on each of the subsidiaries to immediately open up a view on these certificate units.  No more hunting around particularly for those BHC's whose subsidiary names bear little resemblance ot the parent's name.

For Professional IRA Bank Monitor subscribers, we have also added the following:

Raw Data Tools

All Professional product subscribers now have access to IRA's raw "data to the desktop" tool that will deliver data extracts from FDIC Call Reports, Federal Reserve Y9C's and NCUA 5300 Reports in HTML, Excel or XML.

Basel Report

We have updated the Basel Report in our Professional system to show historical compliance with Basel III capital requirements minima. The Basel III report section also includes repoting on the U.S. capital requirements tests.   Basel II measurements continue to include performance tracking calculations on Loss Experience, Loss Given Default, Weighted Maturiity and Exposure at Default computations.

Performance Matrices with Extended Lookback

Professional services users now have one-click options to extend performance table reports on banks with up to ten (10) years historical reports computed quartertly.   One additional click dumps it to your Excel speadsheet. 

A number of IRA users have told us they'd like a way to give friends and business clients IRA reports.   We have implemented a gift certificate feature to allow you to do so.   There are options for single reports, newsletter library access, comparing two banks or credit unions, or -- for special clients -- you can buy them an unlimited-use subscriptoin.

Banks, credit unions and financial advisers contact us about bulk certificates for your customers.  Call our Torrance, California office at 310.676.3300.

Click Here to see the gift form.

(Torrance, CA) Institutional Risk Analytics announces the commercial availability of NCUA Credit Union analytics.   Analysis of key measures on CU perforomance extracted from NCUA 5300 Reports is now available for purchase on the Professional IRA Bank Monitor and in the IRABankRatings.com shopping cart.

IRA's introduction of objective analysis continues to raise the bar on transparency of U.S. financial institutions.  The addition of credit unions to IRA's bank coverage nearly doubles our coverage and vastly expands the information available to consumers, industry participants and regulators to monitor the health of the financial system.

WASHINGTON - The U.S. Department of the Treasury announced today that it is commencing secondary public offerings of the preferred stock it holds in the following six institutions.

Banner Corporation, Walla Walla, WA (“Banner”)
First Financial Holdings Inc., Charleston, SC (“First Financial”)
MainSource Financial Group, Inc., Greensburg, IN (“MainSource”)
Seacoast Banking Corporation of Florida, Stuart, FL (“Seacoast”)
Wilshire Bancorp, Inc., Los Angeles, CA (“Wilshire”)
WSFS Financial Corporation, Wilmington, DE (“WSFS”)

For users of the IRA Bank Monitor, here are the id numbers to punch up to look at them,

2126977 - BANNER CORPORATION
10 SOUTH FIRST AVENUE
WALLA WALLA, WA

1890507 - FIRST FINANCIAL HOLDINGS, INC.
2440 MALL DRIVE
CHARLESTON, SC
No coverage. NIC says no bank regulatory financial data available. Use SEC filings for CIK 787075 instead.

1209109 - MAINSOURCE FINANCIAL GRP
2105 NORTH STATE ROAD 3 BYPASS
GREENSBURG, IN

1085013 - SEACOAST BANKING CORPORATION OF FLORIDA
815 Colorado Avenue
Stuart, FL

17838 - WILMINGTON SVG FUND SOCIETY
500 DELAWARE AVENUE
WILMINGTON, DE

3248513 - WILSHIRE BANCORP, INC.
3200 WILSHIRE BOULEVARD
LOS ANGELES, CA

"Unlimited Use" IRABankRatings.com subscribers ($1,000/yr per userid) can place these institutions into your watch list to track them.   Professional IRA Bank Monitor customers can also see IRA's proprietary "Shadow" CAMELS scores on these institutions as well as number of enhanced views of these institutions including detailed prior period reports.  The professional system is available for $10,000/yr per user id.  If you are going to bid on these Dutch auctions you should probably buy yourself a look-see.   There are another 800 of these CPP and other Federal bailout program preferred share packages out there.

Yes the ratings are a mixed bag.  Buy it and see for yourself.