NEW YORK (Standard&Poor's) Jan. 18, 2012--Standard&Poor's Ratings Services today said that its ratings on U.S. Bancorp (USB; A/Stable/A-1) were not affected by the company's solid fourth-quarter earnings, given the challenging operating conditions. Excluding a merchant settlement gain of $263 million, USB posted a pretax Standard&Poor's-adjusted earnings of $1.59 billion as of fourth-quarter 2011, down from $1.74 billion as of the previous quarter and up from $1.17 billion as of fourth-quarter 2010. In the fourth quarter, adjusted revenue increased 1.0% from the previous quarter and 4.8% year over year, reflecting an increase in average earning assets and fee-based income that helped offset net interest margin (NIM) compression. The NIM declined 5 basis points (bps) from
