Word: bankes
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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This week the FDIC came up with another solution, which it says will simultaneously boost the fund and not hurt bank earnings or deplete lending. How is it possible that the FDIC's gain will not be a loss to the banking system? It's all thanks to an accounting quirk that allows companies to spend money on something but not actually tell their shareholders about the cost until the asset is gone. For you and me, it would be like shoplifting at the supermarket and then dropping off cash every time you decided to eat something...
Here's how it will work in the FDIC's case: Later this year, along with their scheduled 2009 fee, banks will pay the FDIC all of the fees that they believe they will owe the agency through the end of 2012. But even though the banks will make those payments this year, they won't show up on 2009 income statements. Instead, each bank will add an asset, a big one, to its balance sheet, right below where the cash they just handed over to the FDIC used to be. It will be called something like prepaid FDIC premiums...
...case of big banks like Bank of America or Citigroup, the upfront payments could run to a few billions. But the FDIC and analysts say banks will be more than able to cover it. Cash flow is not their problem. Capital is. And because the prepayments won't hit earnings, at least not initially, those capital ratios we have been worried about to show if banks are solvent won't change. Banks, all too familiar with accounting tricks, seem overjoyed by the FDIC's solution...
...first I thought there was no way this would fly," says analyst Paul Miller at FBR Capital Markets. "But I talk to a number of bank executives, and they like...
...works out nicely if the prepayment actually covers what the FDIC needs for the next three years," says veteran bank analyst Ed Narjarian of the ISI Group. "But more than likely, the FDIC is going to be back for more before the three years...