Troubled banks made up about 12 pct of total in Q1

WASHINGTON (AP) - The number of banks at risk of failing made up nearly 12 percent of all federally insured banks in the first three months of 2011, the highest level in 18 years.

That proportion is about the same as in the October-December quarter last year, though the increase in the number of banks on the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.'s confidential "problem" list is slowing.

The FDIC added only four banks to its list in the January-March quarter. That brought the total to 888 from 884. Banks on the list are deemed by examiners to have very low capital cushions again risk.

In the January-March period, the industry reported its highest earnings, $29 billion, since before the financial crisis hit more than three years ago. But only a small fraction of the 7,574 federally insured banks - the 1.4 percent with assets exceeding $10 billion - drove the bulk of the earnings growth. They accounted for about $24.4 billion of the industry's earnings last quarter.

These are the largest banks, such as Bank of America Corp., Citigroup Inc., JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Wells Fargo & Co. Most of these banks have recovered with help from federal bailout money and record-low borrowing rates.

By contrast, most of the banks that have struggled or failed have been small or regional institutions. These banks depend heavily on loans for commercial property and development - sectors that have suffered huge losses. As companies shut down during the recession, they vacated shopping malls and office buildings financed by those loans.

The amount that banks set aside for possible losses on loans fell by more than half last quarter, to $20.7 billion from $51.6 billion in the year-earlier quarter. But many banks pulled in less revenue in the January-March period than they did a year earlier.

And overall net revenue declined 3.2 percent to $5.5 billion. It was just the second time in 27 years that the industry has reported less revenue than in the year-earlier quarter. As with the increased earnings, the drop in revenue was concentrated among the banks with more than $10 billion in assets.

FDIC Chairman Sheila Bair said some of the revenue decline was likely due to new rules that limit banks' charges for overdrafts on checking accounts. Banks are now barred, for example, from automatically enrolling customers in checking overdraft programs, which often charge $35 or more per violation.