United Bancshares Inc's Competitiveness

The Corporation competes for deposits with other commercial banks, savings associations and credit unions and issuers of commercial paper and other securities, such as shares in money market mutual funds. Primary factors in competing for deposits include customer service, interest rates and convenience. In making loans, the Corporation competes with other commercial banks, savings associations, consumer finance companies, credit unions, leasing companies, mortgage companies and other lenders. Competition is affected by, among other things, the general availability of lendable funds, general and local economic conditions, current interest rate levels and other factors that are not readily predictable. The financial services industry is likely to become more competitive as further technology advances enable more companies to provide financial services. We compete by offering quality products and innovative services at competitive prices, and by maintaining our products and services offerings to keep pace with customer preferences in the regions that we operate.

In recent years, mergers and acquisitions have led to greater concentration in the banking industry, placing added competitive pressure on our core banking products and services. Consolidation continued during 2015, primarily through private merger and acquisition transactions, and led to redistribution of deposits and certain banking assets to other financial institutions. We expect this trend to continue during 2016, due primarily to increased compliance costs. We, therefore, expect competition in the markets we serve to intensify with the advent of new technology and consolidation trends. As a matter of course, we continue to evaluate opportunities in the markets we serve or contiguous markets to improve our footprint, while balancing the efficiency of technology.