Assets and Liabilities of Commercial Banks in the United States - H.8
Technical Q&As RSS DDP
This page provides additional information about data in the Board of Governors’ statistical release on Assets and Liabilities of Commercial Banks in the United States (Weekly) - H.8. Most of the information is of a technical nature and represents answers to questions that may be of interest to a range of analysts and researchers. The page will be updated as such questions arise.
Documentation for the statistics in the H.8 release is available on the About page on the Board's website.
How does the H.8 handle nonbank structure activities?
How does the H.8 handle panel shifts?
How to calculate the Pro Rata Monthly Average
What is the quarterly H.8 benchmark?
How does the coverage of private depository institutions in the Z.1 Financial Accounts of the United States statistical release (Z.1) align with the coverage of banks in the H.8 Assets and Liabilities of Commercial Banks in the United States release?
Can the Large Commercial Banks report be used to identify the 25 banks in the large bank panel included in the H.8 release?
What changes to weekly seasonal adjustment occurred with the June 30, 2023, H.8 release?
How does the H.8 release handle structure activities involving large banks?
What methodological change, affecting the large and small domestically chartered commercial bank data series, was implemented with the October 2, 2020, H.8 release?
What caused the increase in Treasury and agency securities, mortgage-backed securities (MBS) for the week ending April 3, 2013?
What changes to the seasonal factors occurred with the September 21, 2012, H.8 release?
Why does the series for credit cards and other revolving credit plans in the H.8 Assets and Liabilities of Commercial Banks in the United States (H.8) release differ from that published in the G.19 Consumer Credit (G.19) release and from other published sources?
Posted: 06/21/2024Please see the FEDS Note A Note on Revolving Credit Estimates for an explanation of how different estimates of revolving credit in the U.S. vary in their representation of the revolving credit universe and in the frequency at which they are collected.
How does the H.8 handle nonbank structure activities?
Posted: 03/08/2024As an example, if commercial and industrial (C&I) loans at large banks increased by one percent because a large bank acquired a nonbank institution during the week ending Wednesday, June 30, 2021, the levels for C&I loans at large banks for all weeks prior to June 30, 2021, would be increased by one percent, and then the percent changes would be calculated using those adjusted levels.
How does the H.8 handle panel shifts?
Posted: 03/08/2024As an example, if commercial and industrial (C&I) loans at small banks decreased by one percent because a small bank was acquired by a large bank during the week ending Wednesday, June 30, 2021, then the estimates for C&I loans at small banks for all weeks prior to June 30, 2021, would be reduced by one percent, and these weekly amounts would be added to C&I loans at large banks.
How to calculate the Pro Rata Monthly Average:
Posted: 03/08/2024As an example, we want to calculate the pro rata monthly average level of commercial and industrial loans (C&I) at all commercial banks, seasonally adjusted, for August 2023. There are 31 days in the month spread across six weeks of as-of Wednesday data (August 2, 9, 16, 23, 30, and September 6), as shown in the following table. The week of August 2 contains 2 days in August, so it takes a weight of 2. Each of the remaining weeks in August contains 7 days, so each of them takes a weight of 7. The week of Sepetember 6 has 1 day in August, giving it a weight of 1. The weighted weekly level equals the weight times the weekly level. The pro rata monthly average level equals the sum of these weighted levels divided by 31, the number of days in August.
| Week Ending | Days (weight) in the Month of August |
Weekly Level (in millions) |
Weighted Level (Days x Level) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2-Aug-23 | 2 | 2,771,094 | 5,542,189 |
| 9-Aug-23 | 7 | 2,766,109 | 19,362,760 |
| 16-Aug-23 | 7 | 2,773,042 | 19,411,291 |
| 23-Aug-23 | 7 | 2,771,030 | 19,397,213 |
| 30-Aug-23 | 7 | 2,775,902 | 19,431,317 |
| 6-Sep-23 | 1 | 2,771,170 | 2,771,170 |
| Pro Rata Monthly Average Level | 2,771,482 | ||
| = sum of weighted levels / number of days in August | |||
NOTE: Weekly and monthly levels may not match published data due to revisions in underlying data.
What is the quarterly H.8 benchmark?
Posted: 03/08/2024The H.8 release is based on a statistical procedure that uses a panel of approximately 850 domestically chartered commercial banks and foreign-related institutions (as explained on the H.8 About page) to estimate the assets and liabilities of all commercial banks (consisting of more than four thousand institutions as of the end of the fourth quarter 2023) in the United States. In the estimation process, each of the domestic panel banks carries a weight to represent not only itself but also its peers of similar size that are not in the panel. Similarly, each of the foreign-related panel institutions represents U.S. branches and agencies of foreign banks that are not in the panel. In most weekly releases, weights calculated from the most recent Consolidated Reports of Condition and Income (Call Reports) are carried forward. Once new Call Report data become available, the weights applied to weekly releases since the previous Call Report are updated, in a process referred to as benchmarking. The weights resulting from the previous and current benchmarks are interpolated over the previous quarter to avoid large fluctuations in the data due to the introduction of new weights.
How does the coverage of private depository institutions in the Z.1 Financial Accounts of the United States statistical release (Z.1) align with the coverage of banks in the H.8 Assets and Liabilities of Commercial Banks in the United States release?
Posted: 03/08/2024Please see the Technical Q&As for the Z.1 release Financial Accounts of the United States.
Can the Large Commercial Banks report be used to identify the 25 banks in the large bank panel included in the H.8 release?
Posted: 03/08/2024For the purposes of the H.8 statistical release, large domestically chartered commercial banks are defined as the top 25 domestically chartered commercial banks ranked by domestic asset size based on the Consolidated Reports of Condition and Income (Call Reports) for commercial banks to which the H.8 release data had been most recently benchmarked. For more information about the benchmarking process, please see the H.8 Technical Q&A page. For ease of reference, domestic assets for larger banks may be found in the “Domestic Assets” column of the Large Commercial Banks report, which generally corresponds to the domestic office data on the Call Reports used by the H.8 release. This report is released quarterly after the Call Reports; historical versions of this report are also available extending back to 2001.
There are several user caveats to relying on this table as an indicator of the identity of the large domestically chartered commercial banks for the H.8 statistical release:
- The Large Commercial Banks report is limited to insured domestically chartered banks with consolidated assets greater than or equal to $300 million reported each quarter on the Call Reports; consequently, the report for December 2023 includes data for 2,129 banks. The H.8 release covers all insured domestically chartered commercial banks in its universe regardless of size, in addition to industrial banks and non-deposit trust companies which may not be insured, for a total count of 4,060 institutions in December 2023. The H.8 release also includes U.S. branches and agencies of foreign banks as well as Edge Act and agreement corporations not shown on the Large Commercial Banks report.
- By default, the Large Commercial Banks report is sorted by consolidated foreign and domestic assets, whereas the large commercial bank panel on H.8 release are ranked by domestic assets.
- The Large Commercial Banks report is released about eight weeks after the end of each quarter, incorporating new Call Report data. The H.8 release is benchmarked quarterly once Call Report data become available.
- The Large Commercial Banks report is static: mergers, closures, and openings will not be reflected in the report until the next quarterly report. The H.8 release, on the other hand, includes new banks in its universe as they open, drops banks from its universe as they close, and reflects mergers as they occur. However, as the About page indicates, the top 25 banks in the H.8 large bank panel are only reassessed during a benchmark, and any newly established bank, if qualified, cannot replace an existing bank on the panel until after it had filed a Call Report. The large bank panel changes immediately if two or more large banks merge or a large bank closes; in that event, the next bank(s) in size is added.
- A bank’s presence on the Large Commercial Banks report cannot be equated with or construed as participation in the FR 2644 weekly data collection that supports the H.8 release. Participation in the FR 2644 data collection is voluntary and subject to change, and FR 2644 panel membership and all associated microdata are treated as confidential. Please see the FR 2644 reporting form page for more information.
What changes to weekly seasonal adjustment occurred with the June 30, 2023, H.8 release?
Posted: 06/30/2023The H.8 release uses a two-stage estimation to seasonally adjust the weekly bank balance sheet data, consisting of the following steps: (1) a monthly seasonal estimation using the Census Bureau’s X-13ARIMA-SEATS Seasonal Adjustment Program 
that automatically detects and adjusts for outliers, such as outliers caused by the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and the Global Financial Crisis; and (2) a weekly seasonal estimation, constrained by the results of the monthly estimation, that allocates seasonal factors across the weeks of a month. Beginning with the H.8 release on June 30, 2023, the inputs to the weekly seasonal estimation now exclude weeks corresponding to the outliers identified during the monthly seasonal estimation. Federal Reserve Board staff has determined that this methodological change reduces volatility in the weekly seasonally adjusted series and has little effect on the monthly seasonally adjusted series, which are constructed as pro rata averages of the weekly seasonally adjusted series.
How does the H.8 release handle structure activities involving large banks?
Posted: 03/24/2023As defined on the H.8 About page, large domestically chartered commercial banks are the top 25 domestically chartered commercial banks ranked by size. Banks are ranked by domestic assets as of the previous commercial bank Call Report to which the H.8 release data have been benchmarked (a cover note to the H.8 release informs the public each time the data have been benchmarked). If a large bank is acquired by a commercial bank or if a large bank leaves the commercial bank universe, then it is replaced with the bank next in line, typically the bank ranked number 26. If a nonbank converts to a commercial bank charter, or if a small bank becomes large in size, it is not considered for the large bank panel (regardless of size) until the data are benchmarked to the subsequent Call Report.
In the construction of the H.8 release, a commercial bank is distinguished by its RSSD ID. The RSSD ID is a unique identifier assigned to financial institutions by the Federal Reserve. Information about financial institution characteristics by RSSD ID may be found on the FFIEC National Information Center website. For example, if a large bank becomes inactive and its assets are acquired by a newly established bank with a different RSSD ID, the newly established bank will not be considered for the large bank panel until it has filed a Call Report and the H.8 data are benchmarked to that Call Report. If instead a large bank is acquired by another large bank, then the next bank in line will join the large bank panel. In either case there will be an adjustment to the level and growth rate series to remove the effect of the panel shift as described on the About page and in a previous Technical Q&A.
What methodological change, affecting the large and small domestically chartered commercial bank data series, was implemented with the October 2, 2020, H.8 release?
Posted: 10/02/2020A change in the methodology used to account for shifts between large and small domestically chartered commercial banks was implemented with the October 2, 2020, H.8 release.
Data for large and small domestically chartered banks are regularly adjusted to remove the estimated effects of shifts in membership between the two bank groups, so as to maintain the historical continuity of the data for each individual bank group. After such a shift occurs, a ratio procedure is used to adjust past levels to make them comparable with current levels. The previous procedure computed ratio adjustments based on the gross dollar shift out of each bank group, and then the ratio adjustments were netted to produce the ultimate shift effect on each data series. The modified procedure computes the net dollar shift between bank groups before computing a ratio adjustment. The modified procedure results in reduced variance in the large and small domestically chartered bank series.
The change in methodology only affects data series for large and small domestically chartered commercial banks (data in H.8 release tables 6 through 9); the change in methodology does not affect data series for all domestically chartered commercial banks, foreign-related institutions, or all commercial banks. Because the effects on the data of ratio adjustments accumulate over time, revisions to the data due to this methodological change are most significant for earlier dates.
What caused the increase in Treasury and agency securities, mortgage-backed securities (MBS) for the week ending April 3, 2013?
Posted: 05/14/2013The H.8 report released on May 10, 2013 incorporated revisions to historical data for Treasury and agency securities, mortgage-backed securities (MBS); Treasury and agency securities, non-MBS; other securities, non-MBS; and other assets. These revisions were confirmed correct, and their effects have been removed from the growth rates published on page 1 of the H.8 release.
What changes to the seasonal factors occurred with the September 21, 2012, H.8 release?
Posted: 09/21/2012In seasonally adjusting the bank balance sheet data, we use the Census Bureau’s X-12-ARIMA Seasonal Adjustment Program. (For more information on X-12-ARIMA please refer to https://www.census.gov/library/working-papers/1998/adrm/findley-01.html .) By default, X-12-ARIMA implements a model selection procedure and selects the optimal statistical model from a range of alternatives. However, the automatic model selection process may not deliver stable seasonal adjustment factors over time if the underlying economic time series is subject to large level shifts and other changes that increase its variability. Federal Reserve Board staff has determined that using a fixed baseline model to update the seasonal factors for all bank balance sheet series is preferred to the automatic model selection option as the former approach ensures stability and accuracy of seasonal factors over time while the losses from not implementing the automatic model selection were found to be small. The baseline model uses a first order moving average term in both the seasonal and non-seasonal components for differenced data. As a result of our use of this different X-12-ARIMA option, the cash assets series revised significantly; a few other series exhibited smaller revisions (net due to related foreign offices; allowance for loan and lease losses; and Treasury and agency securities, non-MBS). Revisions to all other series were well within the typical range associated with a quarterly benchmark.