The Bancorp Again Delays Filing of Annual Report

By Colin Wilhelm May 16, 2015, 2:28 p.m. EDT 1 Min Read

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The Bancorp in Wilmington, Del., has again delayed the filing of its 2014 annual report and is also late in submitting its first-quarter results, it said in a news release Friday.

The $5 billion-asset company, which has been under fire from regulators, did not file its annual report, or 10-K, early this year as required. Last month it promised to submit the report by May 11, but it said in a regulatory filing May 11 that it would miss that deadline, too.

"The delay was occasioned by additional testing being performed by the companys independent public accountants," The Bancorp said in the 8-K filing submitted to the Securities and Exchange Commission.

It now plans to submit its 2014 annual report by the end of June, and has delayed its first-quarter report until then as well, according to the filing and the release.

The delays have put the Bancorp into conflict with the Nasdaq stock exchange's requirements for timely filing of financial results. Nasdaq recently sent its second warning letter to The Bancorp, stating that the company faces the possibility of delisting unless it submits its reports promptly, the release said. Nasdaq had set a June 1 deadline for the annual report, but the company said it hopes its latest plan will satisfy exchange officials.

The company has been through a lot of regulatory and financial tumult in the past year.

The Bancorp in June 2014 was hit with a consent order from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., which found weaknesses in the company's Bank Secrecy Act compliance programs. The order required The Bancorp to curtail expansion of its prepaid card business until regulators allowed otherwise, calling into question its financial-growth projections.

In January of this year, it said it had lost $2.2 million in the fourth quarter, heavily attributed to higher compliance costs, and that the FDIC had hit it with an insurance premium surcharge because of a new way the agency is treating certain prepaid accounts. The charge was said to equal 10 basis points applied against the average liabilities of its bank.

Chief Executive Betsy Cohen resigned on Dec. 31, and Frank Mastrangelo, the company's president and chief operating officer, succeeded her. In late March the company said it had hired Gail Ball, formerly head of the payment studies group at the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, as COO

Colin Wilhelm