With a month remaining in the fourth quarter, New York-based Signature Bank has nearly reached the prior quarter's loan growth and may reach $1 billion, executives said.
Quarterly loan growth for the bank stood around $750 million as of Dec. 1, President and CEO Joseph DePaolo said at the Goldman Sachs U.S. Financial Services Conference. It grew loans by $799.4 million in the third quarter.
Signature has a robust pipeline, but it does expect some prepayments to take effect in the coming months. "It looks rather promising that we could have $1 billion loan growth," he said, jokingly adding, "but I didn't say that."
With U.S. lawmakers working on a bipartisan effort to roll back regulations, particularly around the $50 billion threshold, Signature could see relief in expenses for compliance with the liquidity coverage ratio and living wills. Its investment in stress testing is "pretty much done" said Eric Howell, executive vice president of corporate and business development.
Signature had $41.33 billion in assets as of Sept. 30. Plans regarding crossing the $50 billion mark are in a state of limbo due to the possible outcomes in Congress. "We're gonna delay, given what's going on right now," he said.
"It would be nice not to have more consultants walking around." DePaolo added. "Not for the consultants, but for us."
