Company: BCTF
Filing Date: 2025-03-06
Form Type: 10-K
Source: 0001552781-25-000058
Chunk: 1228

Company: Bancorp 34, Inc.
Filing Date: 2025-03-06
Form: 10-K
Item: Item 5
Chunk 1228
---
  
     1,148 
  
    Data processing 
     3,934  
     2,665 
  
    FDIC and other insurance expense 
     586  
     348 
  
    Professional fees 
     1,861  
     742 
  
    Merger costs 
     3,763  
     3,010 
  
    Advertising 
     302  
     46 
  
    Core deposit intangible amortization 
     1,341  
     — 
  
    Other expenses 
     3,170  
     1,454 
  
    Total noninterest expense 
    $30,416  
    $15,537 

Our non-interest expense increased $14.9
million to $30.4 million for the year ended December 31, 2024, from $15.5 million for 2023. The increase reflects, in large part,
the addition of CBOA to the Bank’s operations as a result of the March 19, 2024, CBOA Merger and a non-recurring $0.7 million
expense related to a check kiting incident in the fourth quarter of 2024.

Merger
costs were slightly higher in 2024 compared to 2023, primarily due to the expenses incurred when the CBOA merger was completed, the
most significant of which were core processing termination fees, online banking termination fees, and a change-in-control charge.
Merger expenses in 2023 primarily consisted of termination of an IT servicing contract, expenses related to becoming an SEC
registrant, merger consulting fees, due diligence fees, and investment banker fees. Merger expenses in 2024 primarily consisted of
core processing and online banking termination fees, related to termination of an IT servicing contract, employee change-in-control
and board severance payments, conversion related expenses, merger consulting fees, investment banker success fees, and legal
expenses.

For the year, and
in connection with the CBOA Merger, we expensed $1.3 million of amortization expense on the merger-related core deposit intangible. For
more information on the CBOA Merger, see Note 2 in our consolidated financial statements included in this Annual Report on Form 10-K.

Efficiency
ratio

The efficiency ratio
is one measure of profitability in the banking industry. This ratio measures the cost of generating one dollar of revenue. That is