Northfield Bancorp (NFBK) Risk Analysis

Changes in federal tax laws may have an adverse effect on the market for, and the valuation of, residential properties, and on the demand for such loans in the future and could make it harder for borrowers to make their loan payments. In addition, these changes also have a disproportionate effect on taxpayers in states with high residential home prices and high state and local taxes, like New Jersey and New York. If home ownership becomes less attractive, demand for mortgage loans could decrease. The value of the properties securing loans in our loan portfolio may be adversely impacted as a result of the changing economics of home ownership, which could require an increase in our provision for credit losses, which would reduce our profitability and could materially adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations. Additionally, legislation in New Jersey imposes a temporary surtax on corporations earning New Jersey allocated income in excess of $1 million of 2.5% for tax years beginning on or after January 1, 2018 through December 31, 2019, and of 1.5% for tax years beginning on or after January 1, 2020 through December 31, 2021. On September 29, 2020, the state extended the 2.5% surtax through December 31, 2023, retroactively to tax years beginning January 1, 2020. The legislation also requires combined filing for certain members of an affiliated group for tax years beginning on or after January 1, 2019. The new legislation may cause us to lose the benefit of certain of our tax management strategies and may cause our total tax expense to increase.

A significant portion of our loan portfolio is secured by real estate, and we could become subject to environmental liabilities with respect to one or more of these properties. During the ordinary course of business, we may foreclose on and take title to properties securing defaulted loans. In doing so, there is a risk that hazardous or toxic substances could be found on these properties. If hazardous conditions or toxic substances are found on these properties, we may be liable for remediation costs, as well as for personal injury and property damage, civil fines and criminal penalties regardless of when the hazardous conditions or toxic substances first affected any particular property. Environmental laws may require us to incur substantial expenses to address unknown liabilities and may materially reduce the affected property's value or limit our ability to use or sell the affected property. In addition, future laws or regulations, or more stringent interpretations or enforcement policies with respect to existing laws and regulations may increase our exposure to environmental liability, and heightened pressure from investors and other stakeholders may require us to incur additional expenses with respect to environmental matters. Although we have policies and procedures to perform an environmental review before initiating any foreclosure action on nonresidential real property, these reviews may not be sufficient to detect all potential environmental hazards. The remediation costs and any other financial liabilities associated with an environmental hazard could have a material adverse effect on us.

We regularly collect, process, transmit and store significant amounts of confidential information regarding our customers, employees and others and concerning our own business, operations, plans and strategies. In some cases, this confidential or proprietary information is collected, compiled, processed, transmitted, or stored by third parties on our behalf. Our heavy reliance on information technology systems (both internal and third-party) exposes us to operational risks which include the risk of malfeasance by employees or persons outside of our organization, errors relating to transaction processing and technology, systems failures or interruptions, failures to properly implement systems upgrades, breaches of our internal control systems and compliance requirements, and business continuation and disaster recovery. Information security risks have generally increased in recent years because of the proliferation of new technologies, the use of the Internet and telecommunications technologies to conduct financial and other transactions, and the increased sophistication and activities of perpetrators of cyber-attacks and mobile phishing. Mobile phishing, a means for identity thieves to obtain sensitive personal information through fraudulent e-mail, text or voice mail, is an emerging threat targeting the customers of financial entities. A failure in or breach of our operational or information security systems, or those of our third-party service providers, as a result of cyber-attacks or information security breaches or due to employee error, malfeasance or other disruptions could adversely affect our business, result in the disclosure or misuse of confidential or proprietary information, damage our reputation, increase our costs and/or cause losses. If this confidential or proprietary information were to be mishandled, misused, or lost, we could be exposed to significant regulatory consequences, reputational damage, civil litigation, and financial loss. Although we employ a variety of physical, procedural, and technological safeguards to protect this confidential and proprietary information from mishandling, misuse, or loss, these safeguards do not provide absolute assurance that mishandling, misuse, or loss of the information will not occur, and that if mishandling, misuse, or loss of information does occur, those events will be promptly detected and addressed. Similarly, when confidential or proprietary information is collected, compiled, processed, transmitted or stored by third parties on our behalf, our policies and procedures require that the third party agree to maintain the confidentiality of the information, establish and maintain policies and procedures designed to preserve the confidentiality of the information, and permit us to confirm the third party's compliance with the terms of the agreement. As information security risks and cyber threats continue to evolve, we may be required to expend additional resources to continue to enhance our information security measures and/or to investigate and remediate any information security vulnerabilities.

Information technology systems are critical to our business. We use various technology systems to manage our customer relationships, general ledger, securities, deposits, and loans. We have established policies and procedures to prevent or limit the effect of system failures, interruptions, and security breaches, but such events may still occur or may not be adequately addressed if they do occur. In addition, any compromise of our systems could deter customers from using our products and services. Although we rely on security systems to provide security and authentication necessary to affect the secure transmission of data, these precautions may not protect our systems from compromises or breaches of security. In addition, we outsource a majority of our data processing to certain third-party providers. If these third-party providers encounter difficulties, or if we have difficulty communicating with them, our ability to adequately process and account for transactions could be affected, and our business operations could be adversely affected. Threats to information security also exist in the processing of customer information through various other vendors and their personnel. The occurrence of any system failures, interruption, or breach of security could damage our reputation, disrupt operations, misappropriate confidential information, damage our computer systems and result in a loss of customers and business thereby subjecting us to additional regulatory scrutiny, or could expose us to litigation and possible financial liability. Any of these events could have a material adverse effect on our financial condition and results of operations.

We face intense competition in making loans and attracting deposits. Price competition from other financial institutions, credit unions, money market and mutual funds, insurance companies, and other non-traditional competitors such as financial technology companies, for loans and deposits sometimes results in us charging lower interest rates on our loans and paying higher interest rates on our deposits and may reduce our net interest income. Competition also makes it more difficult and costly to attract and retain qualified employees. Many of the institutions with which we compete have substantially greater resources and lending limits than we have and may offer services that we do not provide. Our competitors also may price loan and deposit products aggressively when they enter into new lines of business or new market areas. We expect competition to increase in the future as a result of legislative, regulatory, and technological changes and the continuing trend of consolidation in the financial services industry. If we are not able to compete effectively in our market area, our profitability may be negatively affected. The greater resources and broader offering of deposit and loan products of some of our competitors may also limit our ability to increase our interest-earning assets.

Our branch network continues to be a very significant source of new business generation, however, consumers continue to migrate much of their routine banking to self-service channels. In recognition of this shift in consumer patterns, we regularly review our branch network, which can result in branch consolidation accompanied by the enhancement of our capabilities to serve its customers through alternate delivery channels. The benefits of this strategy would depend on our ability to realize expected expense reductions; however, if we are not able to implement this successfully, we may experience significant customer attrition.

Our performance largely depends on the talents and efforts of highly skilled individuals. We rely on key personnel to manage and operate our business, including major revenue generating functions such as loan and deposit generation. The loss of key staff may adversely affect our ability to maintain and manage these functions effectively, which could negatively affect our revenues. In addition, competition for senior executives and skilled personnel in the financial services and banking industry is intense, which means the loss of key personnel could result in increased recruiting and hiring expenses, which could cause a decrease in our net income. Our continued ability to compete effectively depends on our ability to attract new employees and to retain and motivate our existing employees.