Derivative Instruments and Hedging Activities

12 Months Ended

Dec. 31, 2015

Derivative Instruments and Hedging Activities Disclosure [Abstract]

Derivative Instruments and Hedging Activities

DERIVATIVE INSTRUMENTS AND HEDGING ACTIVITIES

Risk Management Objective of Using Derivatives

The Corporation is exposed to certain risks arising from both its business operations and economic conditions.  The Corporation principally manages its exposures to a wide variety of business and operational risks through management of its core business activities. The Corporation manages economic risks, including interest rate, liquidity, and credit risk, primarily by managing the amount, sources, and duration of its assets and liabilities and through the use of derivative financial instruments.  Specifically, the Corporation enters into derivative financial instruments to manage exposures that arise from business activities that result in the receipt or payment of future known and uncertain cash amounts, the value of which are determined by interest rates.  The Corporation’s derivative financial instruments are used to manage differences in the amount, timing, and duration of the Corporation’s known or expected cash payments principally related to certain variable-rate liabilities.  The Corporation also has derivatives that are a result of a service the Corporation provides to certain qualifying customers, and, therefore, are not used to manage interest rate risk in the Corporation’s assets or liabilities.  The Corporation manages a matched book with respect to its derivative instruments offered as a part of this service to its customers in order to minimize its net risk exposure resulting from such transactions.

Fair Values of Derivative Instruments on the Balance Sheet

The table below presents the fair value of the Corporation’s derivative financial instruments as well as their classification on the Balance Sheet as of December 31, 2015 and December 31, 2014.

Asset Derivatives

Liability Derivatives

December 31, 2015

December 31, 2014

December 31, 2015

December 31, 2014

Balance Sheet Location

Fair Value

Balance Sheet Location

Fair Value

Balance Sheet Location

Fair Value

Balance Sheet Location

Fair Value

Derivatives designated as hedging instruments:

Interest rate contracts

Other Assets

$

36

Other Assets

$

137

Other Liabilities

$

2,921

Other Liabilities

$

2,650

Derivatives not designated as hedging instruments:

Interest rate contracts

Other Assets

$

4,938

Other Assets

$

3,730

Other Liabilities

$

5,149

Other Liabilities

$

3,887

Cash Flow Hedges of Interest Rate Risk

The Corporation’s objectives in using interest rate derivatives are to add stability to interest expense and to manage its exposure to interest rate movements. To accomplish this objective, the Corporation primarily uses interest rate swaps and interest rate caps as part of its interest rate risk management strategy.  Interest rate swaps designated as cash flow hedges involve the payment of fixed amounts to a counterparty in exchange for the Corporation receiving variable payments over the life of the agreements without exchange of the underlying notional amount. Interest rate caps designated as cash flow hedges involve the receipt of variable amounts from a counterparty if interest rates rise above the strike rate on the contract in exchange for an up-front premium.  As of December 31, 2015 and 2014, the Corporation had five interest rate swaps with a notional amount of $56.0 million and one interest rate cap with a notional amount of $13.0 million.

The effective portion of changes in the fair value of derivatives designated and that qualify as cash flow hedges is recorded in accumulated other comprehensive income and is subsequently reclassified into earnings in the period that the hedged forecasted transaction affects earnings. During 2015, $26.0 million of the interest rate swaps and the $13.0 million interest rate cap were used to hedge the variable cash outflows (LIBOR-based) associated with existing trust preferred securities when the outflows converted from a fixed rate to variable rate in September 2012.  In addition, the remaining $30.0 million of interest rate swaps were used to hedge the variable cash outflows (LIBOR-based) associated with three Federal Home Loan Bank advances. The ineffective portion of the change in fair value of the derivatives is recognized directly in earnings. During the years ended December 31, 2015 and 2014, the Corporation did not recognize any ineffectiveness.

Amounts reported in accumulated other comprehensive income related to derivatives will be reclassified to interest expense as interest payments are made on the Corporation’s variable-rate liabilities.  During the next twelve months, the Corporation expects to reclassify $1,157,000 from accumulated other comprehensive income to interest expense.

Non-designated Hedges

The Corporation does not use derivatives for trading or speculative purposes.  Derivatives not designated as hedges are not speculative and result from a service the Corporation provides to certain customers. The Corporation executes interest rate swaps with commercial banking customers to facilitate their respective risk management strategies.  Those interest rate swaps are simultaneously hedged by offsetting interest rate swaps that the Corporation executes with a third party, such that the Corporation minimizes its net risk exposure resulting from such transactions.  As the interest rate swaps associated with this program do not meet the strict hedge accounting requirements, changes in the fair value of both the customer swaps and the offsetting swaps are recognized directly in earnings.  As of December 31, 2015, the notional amount of customer-facing swaps was approximately $192,759,000.  This amount is offset with third party counterparties, as described above. 

Effect of Derivative Instruments on the Income Statement

The tables below present the effect of the Corporation’s derivative financial instruments on the Income Statement for the years ended December 31, 2015, 2014 and 2013.

Derivatives Not Designated as Hedging Instruments under FASB ASC 815-10	Location of Gain (Loss) Recognized in Income on Derivative	Amount of Gain (Loss) Recognized in Income on Derivative for the Year Ended December 31, 2015			Amount of Gain (Loss) Recognized in Income on Derivative for the Year Ended December 31, 2014			Amount of Gain (Loss) Recognized in Income on Derivative for the Year Ended December 31, 2013
Interest rate contracts	Other income	$	(53	)	$	(73	)	$	247

Derivatives in Cash Flow Hedging Relationships	Amount of Gain (Loss) Recognized in Other Comprehensive Income on Derivative (Effective Portion) For the Year Ended						Location of Loss Reclassified from Accumulated Other Comprehensive Income (Effective Portion)	Amount of Loss Reclassified from Other Comprehensive Income into Income (Effective Portion) For the Year Ended
	2015			2014				2015			2014			2013
Interest rate products	$	(1,681	)	$	(3,996	)	Interest expense	$	(1,427	)	$	(1,411	)	$	(935	)

The Corporation’s exposure to credit risk occurs because of nonperformance by its counterparties.  The counterparties approved by the Corporation are usually financial institutions, which are well capitalized and have credit ratings through Moody’s and/or Standard & Poor’s, at or above investment grade.  The Corporation’s control of such risk is through quarterly financial reviews, comparing mark-to-market values with policy limitations, credit ratings and collateral pledging.

Credit-Risk-Related Contingent Features

The Corporation has agreements with certain of its derivative counterparties that contain a provision where if the Corporation fails to maintain its status as a well/adequately capitalized institution, then the Corporation could be required to terminate or fully collateralize all outstanding derivative contracts. Additionally, the Corporation has agreements with certain of its derivative counterparties that contain a provision where if the Corporation defaults on any of its indebtedness, including default where repayment of the indebtedness has not been accelerated by the lender, then the Corporation could also be declared in default on its derivative obligations. As of December 31, 2015, the termination value of derivatives in a net liability position related to these agreements was $8,367,000. As of December 31, 2015, the Corporation has minimum collateral posting thresholds with certain of its derivative counterparties and has posted collateral of $11,690,000. If the Corporation had breached any of these provisions at December 31, 2015, it could have been required to settle its obligations under the agreements at their termination value.