In a preview of the industry's third-quarter results, top executives at large and regional banks spoke this week about recent trends in loan growth, deposits, consumer spending and fee income.
Their remarks suggest that the industry's quarterly results, which banks will start reporting next month, may be weaker than they were between April and June, when strong loan growth bolstered net income.
The comments, which came at the Barclays Global Financial Services Conference, also indicate that executives have some fear about the possibility of the U.S. economy tipping into a recession as the Federal Reserve aggressively hikes interest rates in a bid to tame inflation.
"We're not calling a recession, but our view is, given the current environment, we should just be taking a conservative stance," said Doug Shulman, CEO of the nonbank consumer lender OneMain Holdings.
What follows are four key takeaways from the executives' comments.