Banks Earn Record $10.5 Billion

U.S. banks earned $10.5 billion in the first half of 1988, the highest profit ever for a six-month period, as banks outside Texas made money at record rates, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. said today.

The $10.5-billion profit was in stark contrast to the $5.4-billion loss in the first half of 1987, when major banks were establishing huge loan loss reserves to protect themselves against possible defaulting by developing countries, the FDIC said. Texas banks, trapped in the depressed economy of the nation’s “oil patch,” lost $2.9 billion in the first half of 1988, the FDIC said.