US banks made record $60B-plus in Q2

US banks set a record by making more than $60 billion in profits in the second quarter, federal regulators said Thursday.

That’s up more than 25 percent from a year earlier.

The profit boost came because banks have been able to charge more interest on loans in recent months — and received a substantial lift from the tax law enacted last year that lowered corporate income tax rates, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation said.

The nation’s nine largest banks, those that have more than $250 billion in assets, earned roughly half of all profits. The remaining 5,500 banks split the rest.

Banks have been profiting heavily from the recent rise in interest rates, which has contributed heavily to their bottom line. The Federal Reserve has raised its benchmark interest rate two times this year, and is expected to raise interest rates another two times before the end of the year.

Net interest revenue across the entire banking system was $134.1 billion, the FDIC said, up 8.7 percent from the same period a year earlier.

Net interest margin, the difference between what banks earn on their Fed deposits and what they pay to depositors, also increased as banks avoided paying much more interest on deposit accounts.

In another sign of the health of the banking system, zero banks failed in the second quarter, the FDIC said.