Bank On It
More than 130 U.S. banks have collapsed this year due to bad loans and a crippled economy.
The pace of bank failures exceeds that of 2009, which was already a brisk year for shutdowns with a total of 140, according to an Associated Press article published in October. By this time last year, regulators had closed 106 banks. The pace has accelerated as banks' losses mount on loans made for commercial property and development. Many companies have shut down in the recession, vacating shopping malls and office buildings financed by the loans. That has brought delinquent loan payments and defaults by commercial developers.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, an independent agency that preserves and promotes public confidence in the U.S. financial system by insuring deposits in banks and thrift institutions, expects the cost of resolving failed banks to total around $52 billion from 2010 through 2014, according to the article.
Suffice it to say, banking isn't the best business to be in these days.
Allen J. Simon, president of Monaca, Pennsylvania-based trade manufacturer Datatel Resources Corporation, said those issues definitely are impacting his business. Datatel specializes in long run/high volume printing applications: 50" jumbo rolls (pre-printed and blank), laser cut sheets, long run custom forms and high color print utilizing UV drying. Nevertheless, the banking and financial industries remain the largest users of these products.
"Financial end-users are open to new suppliers who will provide stability and dependability in a marketplace being driven by many changes," Simon explained. "Financial and banking customers want to know that their suppliers are financially stable and will be there for them for the long term. This provides an opportunity for distributors and other re-sellers to aggressively partner with manufacturers like Datatel to pursue opportunities and win market shares that at one time [were] only reserved for the large direct companies."
