The federal banking agencies today released 2016 Community Reinvestment Act Data on small business, small farm and community development lending. The CRA requires banks with more than $1.2 billion in assets to report data in these areas.
The 726 reporting banks originated or purchased approximately 7.5 million small business loans totaling $257 billion. The total number of loans originated by reporting banks increased 4.3 percent from 2015, and the dollar amount of originations increased by 4.4 percent. Small farm loan originations increased by 3 percent year-on-year, while the total dollar amount increased by about 1 percent. About half of the reported small business loans and 60 percent of reported farm loans were made to firms with less than $1 million in revenue.
Just over 630 banks reported community development lending activity totaling more than $96 billion, up 10 percent from 2015, and the agencies noted that community development lending has seen steady growth since 2011.
