Empire National Bank said that the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency has ended a formal agreement after the Islandia, N.Y., bank improved its liquidity management and reduced credit concentrations.
The $340 million-asset bank said Tuesday that it also updated strategic plans as part of the agreement from October 2010. The lifting of the order should help the company bolster profits through reduced Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. premiums and OCC assessments, Douglas Manditch, Empire's chairman and chief executive, said in a news release.
The agreement said that the OCC had found "unsafe and unsound banking practices relating to earnings and liquidity" at the bank. It required Empire to develop a three-year capital plan to maintain adequate capital to support its risk profile and implement a profit plan to improve earnings.
Empire also had to diversify its assets and strengthen its contingency funding plan. The bank also could not exceed its level of brokered deposits held at June 30, 2010.
Empire reported in January that its 2011 profit more than doubled from 2010, to $4.6 million, as it recorded a partial reversal of its deferred tax asset valuation allowance.
