U.S. Bancorp grew its prime auto portfolio originations by 6.4% through 2016, the company disclosed in its fourth quarter earnings report.
Through the quarter ending in December, the Minneapolis-based bank originated $17.6 billion auto loans up from $16.5 billion the year prior.
The bank was not immune to the industry-wide trend of rising delinquencies. The company saw an uptick in 30-to-89-day delinquencies to 0.74% of the total auto portfolio compared to 0.51% the year prior.
Rising delinquencies paired with rising net charge-offs, which rose to 0.43% of the total auto portfolio up from 0.36% compared to the previous year.
U.S. Bank deals mostly in the prime spectrum with a weighted average FICO score of 776. Most of those loans — 94% — were done through indirect channels, but the bank also originated 6% of its loans through the direct channels.
The earnings call was conducted after the announcement that U.S. Bank CEO Richard Davis is stepping down on April 18 after a decade in the role. He will be replaced by Andy Cecere, the current president and chief operating officer, who gave no indication that the company’s strategy would drastically change when asked on the call.
