Apart from a one-time adjustment for deferred taxes, the Dallas company strong gains in net interest income and meaningful improvement in all of its key performance ratios.
The payments company will pay $321 million for Crestmark Bank, a commercial lender that focuses on asset-based lending, equipment finance and government-guaranteed loans.
Banks have been in full cost-cutting mode in recent years, but with profits expected to increase substantially as a result of tax reform, all analysts and investors want to know is how they plan to spend their tax savings.
Changing political and economic forces are raising new questions about deployment of tax savings and the cost of deposits, while old concerns about cost-cutting, credit quality and risk taking persist or return.
The two payments companies failed to win U.S. government approval for their merger; the head of the Senate Finance Committee says he will leave when his term ends.