The federal banking agencies today released 2018 Community Reinvestment Act data on small business, small farm and community development lending. The CRA requires banks with more than $1.25 billion in assets to report data in these areas.
The 700 reporting banks originated or purchased 7.1 million small business loans totaling $254 billion. The total number of loans originated by reporting banks increased by about 8% from 2017, and the dollar amount of originations increased by about 5%. Small farm loan originations fell by about 1% year-on-year, while the total dollar amount increased by 0.6%. About half of the reported small business loans and 70% of reported farm loans were made to firms with less than $1 million in revenue.
Just over 600 banks reported community development lending activity totaling nearly $103 billion in 2018, up from $96 billion in 2017.
