Commitments And Contingent Liabilities

9 Months Ended

Sep. 30, 2012

Commitments And Contingent Liabilities [Abstract]

Commitments And Contingent Liabilities

Note 8: Commitments and Contingent Liabilities

The Company's wholly owned subsidiary, Bar Harbor Bank & Trust (the "Bank"), is a party to financial instruments in the normal course of business to meet financing needs of its customers. These financial instruments include commitments to extend credit, unused lines of credit, and standby letters of credit.

Commitments to originate loans, including unused lines of credit, are agreements to lend to a customer provided there is no violation of any condition established in the contract. Commitments generally have fixed expiration dates or other termination clauses and may require payment of a fee. Since many of the commitments are expected to expire without being drawn upon, the total commitment amounts do not necessarily represent future cash requirements. The Bank uses the same credit policy to make such commitments as it uses for on-balance-sheet items, such as loans. The Bank evaluates each customer's creditworthiness on a case-by-case basis. The amount of collateral obtained, if deemed necessary by the Bank upon extension of credit, is based on management's credit evaluation of the borrower.

The Bank guarantees the obligations or performance of customers by issuing standby letters of credit to third parties. These standby letters of credit are primarily issued in support of third party debt or obligations. The risk involved in issuing standby letters of credit is essentially the same as the credit risk involved in extending loan facilities to customers, and they are subject to the same credit origination, portfolio maintenance and management procedures in effect to monitor other credit and off-balance sheet instruments. Exposure to credit loss in the event of non-performance by the counter-party to the financial instrument for standby letters of credit is represented by the contractual amount of those instruments. Typically, these standby letters of credit have terms of five years or less and expire unused; therefore, the total amounts do not necessarily represent future cash requirements.

The following table summarizes the contractual amounts of commitments and contingent liabilities as of September 30, 2012 and December 31, 2011:

	September 30,			December 31,
	2012			2011
Commitments to originate loans	$	56,106	$	23,220
Unused lines of credit	$	102,851	$	88,208
Un-advanced portions of construction loans	$	12,108	$	4,986
Standby letters of credit	$	442	$	350

As of September 30, 2012 and December 31, 2011, the fair value of the standby letters of credit was not significant to the Company's consolidated financial statements.