National Bank of Arkansas enters improvement pact.(BANKING & FINANCE)

National Bank of Arkansas, which is chartered in North Little Rock, has entered an agreement with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency that requires improvement in lending policies and procedural changes, bank managers announced last week.

The OCC, the primary regulator of nationally chartered banks, has not yet made the agreement public. The agreement grew out of problems identified by the OCC in a routine examination last fall, NBA said.

CEO Bob Osborne said in a news release that the agreement with the OCC was "in addition to NBA's continuing implementation of lending policy and procedural changes initiated in mid-2008" by the bank's management and board of directors.

Among the recent changes was the naming of lames S. "Jim" Renk of Sherwood as president of NBA.

The OCC agreement does not require NBA to raise any additional capital, Renk said.

National Bank of Arkansas, which has assets of $206 million, reported a net loss of almost $1.7 million in 2008 after charging off more than $3.2 million and doubling its loan-loss allowance to $2.5 million.

But the first quarter of 2009 was in the black. Net income at March 31 was $262,000, according to the quarterly call report filed with the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council.

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