With banks and lending institutions filing for bankruptcy or being sold to other companies recently, consumers should wonder whether or not their bank is safe amid all the financial turmoil. Bankrate.com has a service on their site where you can look up your bank and see how it rates.
“Bankrate.com’s Safe & Sound® service is a proprietary system designed to provide information on the relative financial strength and stability of U.S. commercial banks, savings institutions and credit unions. The system employs a series of twenty-two tests to measure the capital adequacy, asset quality, profitability, and liquidity (CAEL) of each rated financial institution. Individual performance levels are determined from publicly available regulatory filings and are compared to asset-size peer norms, industry standards and key absolute benchmarks. Combined results form the basis for our Composite CAEL and Star Ratings, which are described below. When possible, the system also produces a report that provides a detailed explanation of our findings, for each rated financial institution.
Bankrate provides its Safe & Sound CAEL ratings information for businesses and consumers to use as only one factor in connection with their banking decisions. In connection with this decision, Businesses and Consumers are advised to independently evaluate all financial institutions, consider other information, including the strength of the financial institution’s management, and to individually contact financial institutions to seek answers to their questions. Bankrate’s rating information should not exclusively be relied upon in making banking decisions.”
