NEW YORK (Standard&Poor's) April 19, 2011--Standard&Poor's Ratings Services said today that U.S. Bancorp's (USB; A+/Stable/A-1) relatively good first-quarter earnings, given the current operating environment, will not affect the ratings. The company posted pretax Standard&Poor's-adjusted earnings of $1.4 billion, up from $1.2 billion the previous quarter and $0.88 billion the prior year's quarter. Adjusted revenue declined 3% sequentially, as an increase in average earning assets helped offset net interest margin (NIM) compression. Specifically, NIM declined 14 basis points (bps) sequentially to 3.69%, reflecting USB's efforts to build its securities portfolio (up $6 billion sequentially) to comply with Basel III's liquidity metrics. Average deposits, which were up 2.8% sequentially (excluding acquisitions), also weighed on NIM. We
