NW Farm Credit Services earnings at $255.6 million

SPOKANE — Northwest Farm Credit Services, the Northwest’s leading financial cooperative supporting agriculture and rural communities, announced 2015 earnings of $255.6 million.

That is an increase of $27.5 million, or 12.0 percent compared to $228.1 million in 2014. Increased earnings were primarily the result of continued loan growth and positive credit quality trends. Total capital increased 8.6 percent during the year to $2.1 billion.

“2015 was another solid year for the association,” President and CEO Phil DiPofi said. “We’ve continued to build a strong financial base to meet our customers’ growing needs for credit and work with them to prepare for volatility in the marketplace. Based on strong earnings, reserves and capital levels we are sharing a higher percentage of the associations’ profits with our customer-members this year.”

As a cooperative, Northwest FCS returns a share of its net earnings to customer-members in the form of patronage dividends.

— Staff report