Two tools for checking on the health of banks

BankTracker, from the Investigative Reporting Workshop at American University, has received more than 700,000 pageviews since its unveiling this week. BankTracker uses FDIC data to calculate the troubled asset ratios for all of the nation's banks, comparing them to the national median. An explanation of their methodology says they don't attempt to "value the non-loan assets that may also be causing bank problems, such as mortgage-backed securities, collateralized debt obligations, etc." Needless to say, such assets are not an insignificant factor in the current financial crisis.

Bankrate.com, which calls itself "the Web's leading aggregator of financial rate information," offers an older, more in-depth tool that provides "Safe & Sound ratings" for banks, thrifts and credit unions. Bankrate says it "continually surveys approximately 4,800 financial institutions in all 50 states in order to provide clear, objective, and unbiased rates to consumers." It says their system applies 22 tests to measure each institutions capital adequacy, asset quality, profitability and liquidity. "Individual performance levels are determined from publicly available regulatory filings and are compared to asset-size peer norms, industry standards and key absolute benchmarks," the site says.

[via IREPLUS-L]