Assets and Liabilities of Commercial Banks in the United States - H.8

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About the Release

The H.8 release provides an estimated weekly aggregate balance sheet for all commercial banks in the United States. The release also includes separate balance sheet aggregations for several bank groups: domestically chartered commercial banks; large domestically chartered commercial banks; small domestically chartered commercial banks; and foreign-related institutions in the United States. Published weekly, the release is typically available to the public by 4:15 p.m. each Friday. If Friday is a federal holiday, then the data are released on Thursday.

The H.8 release is primarily based on data that are reported weekly by a sample of approximately 875 domestically chartered banks and foreign-related institutions. As of July 2009, U.S. branches and agencies of foreign banks accounted for about 60 of the weekly reporters and domestically chartered banks made up the rest of the sample. Data for domestically chartered commercial banks and foreign-related institutions that do not report weekly are estimated at a weekly frequency based on quarterly Call Report data.

Large domestically chartered commercial banks are defined as 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. As of July 2009, the asset size threshold for inclusion in the large-bank panel was approximately $65 billion. Small domestically chartered commercial banks are defined as all domestically chartered banks outside of the top 25. To maintain the historical continuity of the data for each bank group, the data for large and small domestically chartered banks are adjusted to remove the estimated effects of mergers and panel shifts between the two bank groups. Foreign-related institutions include U.S. branches and agencies of foreign banks as well as Edge Act and agreement corporations.

For all bank groups, seasonally adjusted and not seasonally adjusted data are provided for each balance sheet item published on the H.8. Seasonal factors are estimated separately for all commercial banks, domestically chartered banks, and large domestically chartered banks, and seasonally adjusted data for small domestically chartered banks and for foreign-related institutions are derived as residuals from those data. This methodology may occasionally result in negative seasonally adjusted levels for some balance sheet items of small domestically chartered banks and of foreign-related institutions.

The reporting form (FR 2644, "Weekly Report of Selected Assets and Liabilities of Domestically Chartered Commercial Banks and U.S. Branches and Agencies of Foreign Banks") and instructions on which the reported weekly data are based may be found at www.federalreserve.gov/boarddocs/reportforms/default.cfm.