By Staff Report Tuesday, March 27th, 2012

Ojai Community Bank is out from under a regulatory consent order imposed on it last year and reported a profitable 2011, swinging back from a loss the year earlier.

The small Ojai-based bank said March 27 that regulators had lifted a Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. order placed on it on March 31, 2011. The announcement comes as the bank reported that it earned $546,000 last year, up from a loss of $289,000 in 2010. In the fourth quarter, it made $245,000, up from $1,000 in the same period a year earlier.

“Capital is strong, liquidity stable and loan quality is much improved,” the bank said in an earnings release. It said the improvement in loan quality, which resulted in a lower provision for loan-loss reserves, was the biggest contributor to the profit bounce. Substandard loans in the bank’s portfolio dropped 54 percent to $4.5 million last year, it said, and non-accrual status loans were reduced by 60 percent to $2.3 million.

The bank’s full, audited annual report will be released within the next 30 days, it said.

Ojai Community also said that it raised $1.5 million in a private placement of stock to accredited investors, a capital infusion that bumped the bank’s capital ratio to 10 percent, above the regulatory minimum.