Woori America Bank: Overview of the bank
Established more than 25 years ago, Woori America Bank is a mid-sized bank that was founded in the year 1984. The bank’s main office is located in the state of New York however, the banks presence extends to multiple states. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation provides insurance for the bank, in addition to providing insurance to almost 5,000 other institutions in the United States. Generally speaking, the FDIC provides insurance coverage of up to $250,000 per depositor, per insured bank and for each account ownership category. Woori America Bank has been insured by the FDIC since 1984 and has remained insured by the independent agency ever since. The FDIC is also serves as the primary federal regulator for the bank. As a result of its size and presence, the bank is considered a national bank. Based on our estimates, we believe its asset base of $2,970 million ranks it in the 90th percentile of banks in the United States. Woori America Bank is primarily a domestic bank and does not at the current time have operations outside of the United States. Domestically, the bank currently has 20 offices. As of this writing, the bank employed a total of 250 people.
Discussion of the key components of the Bank’s Balance Sheet
As noted earlier, the bank has total assets of $2,970 million. In addition, the bank has a deposit base of $2,451 million and net loans outstanding of $2,126 million. Domestic deposits currently represent (in terms of total size), 83% of the bank’s total assets, and 100% of the bank’s total deposits outstanding. Within these deposits 45% are insured based on the latest available information. Moving on to the components of the bank’s assets we can see that loans provided to customers represent 73% of the banks total assets. Of this amount, loans related to real estate activities comprised 86% of gross loans outstanding. Woori America Bank has $382 million of outstanding 1-4 family residential loans (mortgages), which in total represents 18% of its loans outstanding. Loans to individuals and loans to commercial and industrial interests represent 0% and 13% of loans outstanding, respectively.
Contact Information For Woori America Bank
- Main Office Address: 330 5th Ave., New York, NY 10001
- Website: www.wooriamericabank.com
- Total Number of Branches: 20
- Total Number of International Branches: None
- Number of Employees: 250
- FDIC Certificate Number: 24920
- FDIC Community Bank: No
- FDIC Field Office: New York City
- Independent or Subsidiary Bank: Independent
- Federal Reserve ID Number: 384018
- Bank Charter Class: NM
- Primary Regulator: FDIC
Financial Overview
The bank had total assets of $2,970 million based on the latest available information. Its total assets have increased substantially over the past year, with an increase of 31.3%. In terms of the bank’s lending activities, net loans represented 71.6% of its total assets, and stood at $2,126 million. The bank’s loan portfolio has increased substantially over the past year, with an increase of 19.1%. Residential mortgages comprise 18% of the outstanding loans of the bank. The outstanding balance of residential mortgages has increased over the past year by 3.6%. In addition, the bank provides loans to commercial and industrial businesses, which represents 13.4% of its total lending and stood at $288 million based on the latest available information. Credit card-related lending represents 0.1% of the banks total lending. This represents the outstanding balance of credit cards that the bank has issued to its customers.
Bank Liquidity and Funding
How a bank funds its activities is an important area to assess and monitor. As a depositor you want to make sure the bank is conservatively funded, and the same goes for customers. Oftentimes one of the cheapest forms of funding is customer deposits. Woori America Bank has total customer deposits outstanding of $2,451 million. The bank’s deposit base has increased substantially over the past year, growing 26.2%. In addition, the bank has a loan to deposit ratio of 87%, which is above the average of banks in the United States. The average in the United States is approximately 82% and as a reminder, a lower ratio indicates greater liquidity. The entirety of the bank’s deposit base stems from domestic depositors.
Bank Performance and Capital Metrics
The above chart provides a brief summary of some of the key performance metrics for Woori America Bank. Next to these metrics are the equivalent for the average U.S. bank. As a starting point, looking at the bank’s return on assets, over the past year it has improved. Importantly, on this metric we can also see that the bank is below the average bank. Return on assets tells us how productive a bank is being with its asset base. Next, looking at the bank’s return on equity, which tells us how much of a return the bank has generated for its owners, over the past year it has improved. In addition, we can also see that the bank is below the average bank on this metric. The bank’s total leverage ratio has improved over the past year and is currently above the national average. Finally, we could not find Woori America Bank’s risk-weighted asset information for this period and therefore had to make some assumptions and estimates. We estimate that the bank had a tier 1 capital ratio of 21.9% which is above the average U.S. bank.
Final Thoughts: Woori America Bank
Ultimately, after considering all of the relevant factors we rate Woori America Bank 3.1 out of 5.0, which is above average. There are many factors that go into the calculation of our rating and almost all banks will have both positive and negative contributors. As an example, Woori America Bank scores well on its cost of funds, which is above the national average. However when we consider the bank’s net interest margin, the bank does not have a good score mainly because it is below the national average which impacts its rating. Finally, please note that the rating information is based on our proprietary scoring system. This system was developed by us and leverages data from a nationwide bank study. Importantly, keep in mind that none of the work presented is intended to be investment advice or advice of any sort and is presented purely for informational purposes.