Company: WTFCN
Filing Date: 2025-02-28
Form Type: 10-K
Source: 0001015328-25-000093
Chunk: 211

Company: WINTRUST FINANCIAL CORP
Filing Date: 2025-02-28
Form: 10-K
Item: Item 1A
Chunk 211
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 laws applicable to banking organizations, have increased our compliance costs, impacted the profitability of our business activities and may change certain of our business practices, including the ability to offer new products, obtain financing, attract deposits, make loans, and achieve satisfactory interest spreads, and could expose us to additional costs, including increased compliance costs. These changes also may require us to invest significant management attention and resources to make any necessary changes to operations in order to comply, and could therefore also materially and adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.

Our ability to engage in capital distributions, including paying dividends or repurchasing stock, may be restricted if we do not maintain the required Capital Conservation Buffer. In addition, we anticipate that our pro forma capital ratios will be an 

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important factor considered by the Federal Reserve in evaluating whether proposed payments of dividends or stock repurchases are consistent with its prudential expectations. For more information regarding capital requirements, see “Capital Requirements of the Company and Subsidiary Banks” under Supervision and Regulation in Item 1.

Our FDIC insurance premiums may increase, or the FDIC could adopt additional special assessments, either of which could negatively impact our results of operations.

The Dodd-Frank Act and FDIC regulations use an assessment base for federal deposit insurance premiums based on average total consolidated assets less average tangible capital. There is a risk that the banks’ deposit insurance premiums will increase in the future if failures of insured depository institutions once again deplete the DIF. Additionally, to recoup losses to the DIF resulting from the bank failures of 2023, the FDIC also adopted a special assessment that became effective in 2024 and will be collected over an initial eight quarterly assessment periods, which the FDIC currently projects will be extended for an additional two quarters at a lower rate, subject to certain adjustments. There is a risk that the FDIC could adopt additional special assessments in the future to recoup future DIF losses. Either of these events could negatively impact our financial condition and results of operations. For more information regarding the most recent increase to the banks’ deposit insurance premiums, see “Insurance of Deposit Accounts” under Supervision and Regulation in Item 1.

Non-compliance with the USA PATRIOT Act, BSA or other laws and regulations could result in fines or sanctions.

The USA PATRIOT Act and the BSA require financial institutions to develop risk-based compliance programs designed to prevent financial institutions from being used for money laundering, the funding of terrorist activities or other illicit finance activities.