Nonperforming assets, including bad loans, fell to $542 million from $578.8 million a year earlier.
Nonperforming assets will rise to roughly $1.1 billion, from $853 million, the company said in a statement.
Nonperforming assets are the sum of nonaccrual loans, renegotiated loans and assets acquired through foreclosure.
Nonperforming assets were $25.7 billion, up from $18 billion at the end of 2008, and $6 billion were added to reserves for future losses.
By Dec. 31, 2001, nonperforming assets, which include nonperforming commercial loans, other real estate owned and consumer loans, hit $3.6 billion, a 14% increase from Sept. 30, 2001.
They have been unwilling to close plants that are basically nonperforming assets.
Even as the economy deteriorated, nonperforming assets actually fell 1percentt from the third quarter.
At the end of last year, nonperforming assets totaled just $74 million, or 2 percent of the bank's loans outstanding.
The bank said that nonperforming assets, meaning loans not paying interest, held about even through the quarter.
Now they are nonperforming assets, not a small power forward and a bulky 7-foot-2-inch center.
Loan quality is going up, nonperforming assets are going down and they are still adding to their reserves.
