Lafayette Ambassador Bank owner Fulton Financial Corp. reports 5 percent increase in earnings per share

The company says it set aside less to cover loan losses, while deposits grew by 3 percent.

Local bank owner Fulton Financial Corp.'s third-quarter profits rose 5 percent on a per-share basis, quarter, aided by fewer loan loss provisions.

The parent of Lafayette Ambassador Bank and Fulton Bank of New Jersey reported earnings of $41.6 million for the quarter ended Sept. 30, or 21 cents a share. That’s up from $39.9 million, or 20 cents a share, in the year-ago quarter.

“Our solid third-quarter performance reflects continued improvement in overall asset quality and good core deposit growth, partly due to an increase in new small business customers,” CEO R. Scott Smith said in a statement.

Fulton Financial set aside $23 million to cover bad loans in the third quarter, down 9.8 percent from $25.5 million in the year-ago quarter. Banks generally are setting aside less for loan losses as the credit market slowly recovers from the crash of the late 2000s.

Deposits grew 3 percent to $12.6 billion compared with $12.2 billion in the year-ago quarter.

Fulton Financial subsidiaries Lafayette Ambassador Bank and Fulton Bank of New Jersey respectively in the Lehigh Valley and Warren and Hunterdon counties.

Lafayette Ambassador Bank ranks fourth in the Lehigh Valley market share with more than $1 billion in deposits, according to the FDIC.

Lancaster, Pa.-based Fulton Financial operates 273 branches through several divisions in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland, Delaware and Virginia.

Its shares fell 11 cents, or 1.1 percent, to close at $9.84 in Nasdaq trading today.