Enterprise Bancorp (EBTC) Risk Analysis

If the Company's regulatory capital levels decline, or if regulatory requirements increase, and the Company is unable to raise additional capital to offset that decline or meet the increased requirements, then its regulatory capital ratios may fall below regulatory minimum capital adequacy levels. The Company's failure to remain "well-capitalized" for bank regulatory purposes could affect customer confidence, restrict the Company's ability to grow (both assets and branching activity), increase the Company's costs of funds and FDIC insurance expense, prohibit the Company's ability to pay dividends on common shares, and restrict its ability to make acquisitions, among other impacts. Under FDIC rules, if the Bank ceases to be a "well-capitalized" institution, its ability to accept brokered deposits and the interest rates that it pays may be restricted. The Basel III Rules establish, among other rules, a "capital conservation buffer" of 2.5% above the regulatory minimum risk-based capital requirements. An institution will be subject to limitations on certain activities, including payment of dividends, share repurchases and discretionary bonuses to executive officers, if its capital level is below the buffered ratio.

Climate change, which is having a dramatic effect on weather patterns and causing more frequent and severe weather events, may negatively impact the regional and local economy, increasing credit and other financial risks for the Company and our customers. The physical effects of climate change may adversely impact the value of real property securing the loans in our portfolios and our customers' ability to continue to conduct operations at their business locations. Additionally, if insurance obtained by our borrowers is insufficient to cover any losses sustained to the collateral, or if insurance coverage is otherwise unavailable to our borrowers, the collateral securing our loans may be negatively impacted. Further, the U.S. Congress, state legislatures and federal and state regulatory agencies continue to propose numerous initiatives to supplement the global effort to combat climate change. The Company cannot predict what legislation will be enacted, and, if enacted, the effect that it, or any implementing regulations, would have on the Company's business.

While the Company's lending, foreclosure and facilities policies and guidelines are intended to exclude properties with an unreasonable risk of contamination, hazardous substances could exist on some of the properties that the Company may own, acquire, manage, or occupy. Environmental laws could force the Company to clean up the properties at the Company's expense. It may cost much more to clean a property than the property is worth, and it may be difficult or impossible to sell contaminated properties. The Company could also be liable for pollution generated by a borrower's operations if the Company takes a role in managing those operations after a default.

The Company relies heavily on public utilities infrastructure, internal information and operating systems, and cloud-based solutions and storage to conduct its business effectively, and these systems could fail in a variety of ways. In addition, the use of network, cloud-based, or third-party hosted systems expose the Company to the increased sophistication and activity of cyber-criminals, both domestic and international. Current geopolitical tensions could result in serious and catastrophic attempts at cyber-attacks on the U.S. web-based infrastructure. A cyber incident is considered to be any adverse event that threatens the confidentiality, integrity, or availability of the information resources of the Company. These incidents may be an intentional attack or an unintentional event and could involve blocking the Company from accessing its own systems or remote servers in exchange for a ransom payment, gaining unauthorized access directly to our information systems, or indirectly through our vendors and customers systems or servers, for purposes of misappropriating assets, stealing confidential corporate information or customers' Personally Identifiable Information, corrupting data, denying access or causing operational disruption. The Company's independent third-party service providers or their subcontractors may also expose the Company to cybersecurity risk. Additionally, vendors' and customers' home, business or mobile information systems and the servers they rely on, are at risk of fraudulent corporate account takeovers which the Company may not be able to detect, and may impact the Company's ability to service its customers. There is no guarantee the Company's counteractions will be successful or that the Company will have the resources or technical expertise to anticipate, detect or prevent rapidly evolving types of cyber-attacks. The occurrence of any failures or disruptions as noted above, or the Company's inability to detect, respond, disclose and correct such occurrence or compromise in a timely manner, could subject the Company to increased operational costs to detect and rectify the situation, damage the Company's reputation and deter customers from using the Company's services,increase the Company insurance cost or the ability to obtain adequate cyber insurance coverage, subject the Company to additional regulatory scrutiny, and expose the Company to civil litigation and possible financial liability.

The Company's loan portfolio consists primarily of commercial real estate, commercial and industrial, and commercial construction loans. These types of loans are generally viewed as having more risk of default than owner-occupied residential real estate loans and typically have larger balances. The underlying commercial real estate values, lower demand for office and retail space, increase costs to complete construction projects. Customer cash flows can be more easily influenced by adverse conditions in the related industries, the real estate market or in the economy. Commercial real estate values may be elevated and the outlook for commercial real estate remains dependent on the broader economic environment and, specifically, how major subsectors respond to higher interest rate environment and prices for commodities, goods and services. Credit performance across the industry over the medium- and long-term is susceptible to economic and market forces and our non-performing loans and charge offs may increase. Some degree of general instability in the broad commercial real estate market may occur in the coming quarters as loans are refinanced at higher interest rates and in markets with higher vacancy rates under current economic conditions. Our commercial borrowers may experience greater difficulties meeting their obligations if debt service coverage declines as adjustable-rate loans reprice to higher interest rates and customer cash flows are impacted by inflationary pressures. Conversely, in periods of decreasing interest rates, likely resulting from economic slowdown or recession, borrowers may experience difficulties meeting their obligations and seek to refinance their loans for lower rates, which may adversely affect income from these lending activities. Instability and uncertainty in the commercial real estate markets and elevated level of interest rates could have a material adverse effect on our financial condition and results of operations.

The Company routinely executes transactions with counterparties in the financial services industry, in order to maintain correspondent bank relationships, liquidity, manage certain loan participations, mortgage sales activities, interest-rate swaps, engage in securities transactions, and engage in other financial activities with counterparties that are customary to our industry. Many of these transactions expose the Company to counterparty credit, liquidity and/or reputation risk in the event of default by the counterparty, or negative publicity or public complaints, whether real or perceived, about one or more of the Company's financial counterparties, or the financial services industry in general. Although the Company seeks to manage these risks through internal controls and procedures, the Company may experience loss or interruption of business as a result of unforeseen events with these counterparties.