Fed's Bies Cites Concern at U.S. Banks' Commercial Lending

by Patrick Lunsford, CollectionIndustry.com

Earlier today in London, Federal Reserve Governor Susan Bies commented that U.S. regulators were growing increasingly concerned about banks here concentrating more and more on commercial real estate lending instead of consumer lending.

?The aggregate CRE (commercial real estate) concentrations for small-to-medium-sized U.S. banks, relative to capital, are now twice the exposures before the substantial real estate downturn in the late 1980s,” Bies told attendees of a British Bankers’ Association conference.

Bies said that U.S. regulators recently proposed new guidlines for U.S. banks on the matter and would “expect to see bankers pay greater attention to strengthening their portfolio risk management practices.”