First Trade Union posts smaller 1Q profit

BOSTON – First Trade Union Bank, a full-service bank with offices in Massachusetts, Rhode Island and New York, says it finished the first quarter with net income of $450,000, a 6.7 percent decrease from its profit in the same period a year ago.
The bank said the smaller profit was due to a bigger quarterly provision in anticipation of bad loans. The provision totaled $1.3 million for the first quarter of 2010, up from $610,000 a year earlier. In the 2009 fourth quarter, the loan-loss set aside amounted to $6.6 million.
First Trade said other highlights included:
Total interest income for the first quarter was $8.6 million, a 9.4 percent increase over the year-ago period.
Meanwhile, total operating expense was $4.4 million for the three months ended March 31, a 25 percent increase over the same period last year. First Trade said the increase was largely attributed to increased fees from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and the U.S. Office of Thrift Supervision.
Total assets of $666.8 million as of March 31 represented a 0.5 percent decrease from three months earlier and a 1.8 percent decrease from a year ago.
Asset quality remained steady, First Trade said. Nonperforming loans to total loans remained relatively flat at 3.02 percent in the first quarter, the bank said.
“We made some great progress in the first quarter of 2010,” said Michael A. Butler, First Trade’s president & CEO. “We remain well-positioned when compared to industry averages and are cautiously optimistic about the economic climate. The first quarter has set the tone for what should be a solid 2010.”
First Trade Union Bank is a community bank based in Boston, with offices in Warwick and Hauppauge, New York. The bank has $23.26 million in deposits in Rhode Island, according to the FDIC. Additional information is available at www.ftub.com.