(Reuters) – Zions Bancorporation missed estimates for quarterly profit on Wednesday as higher provisions to cover loan losses offset the impact of rising rates on its interest income.
Shares of Utah-based Zions fell 3% to $31.75 in extended trading after the lender reported a 3% drop in deposits from the previous quarter and a 16% fall from a year earlier.
“The fundamentally solid results that we and many other banks produced in the first quarter were overshadowed by concerns about liquidity and capital strength in the wake of two prominent bank failures in mid-March,” CEO Harris Simmons said.
The sudden collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank recently has rattled the U.S. regional banking sector and sparked worries of an erosion in its deposit base as nervous clients moved their money to bigger financial institutions.
Small banks shed $177.5 billion in deposits in March, compared with the previous month, according to data from the U.S. Federal Reserve.
“Deposits across the industry had been declining in recent quarters after growing rapidly during the pandemic, and although we and other banks experienced negative impacts from these bank failures, our own deposits (excluding any brokered deposits) at quarter end were 18% greater than prepandemic levels,” Simmons added.
Investors are anxiously awaiting reports from several regional banks – the hardest-hit group during the banking tumult last month – to assess their health and ability to absorb future financial shocks.
Still, Zions’ net interest income rose 25% to $679 million in the quarter ended March 31.
It set aside $45 million in provisions in the first quarter, compared with a release of $33 million a year earlier.
The lender reported a profit of $1.33 per share, below analysts’ average estimate of $1.53 per share, according to Refinitv IBES data.
(Reporting by Jaiveer Singh Shekhawat and Mehnaz Yasmin in Bengaluru; Editing by Anil D’Silva)
