The federal banking agencies today released 2019 Community Reinvestment Act data on small business, small farm and community development lending. The CRA requires banks with more than $1.28 billion in assets to report data in these areas.
The 695 reporting banks originated or purchased 7.6 million small business loans totaling $265 billion. The total number of loans originated by reporting banks increased by about 7.9% from 2017, and the dollar amount of originations increased by about 7.7%. Small farm loan originations rose by about 2.4% year-on-year, while the total dollar amount increased by 0.4%. About half the reported small business loans and 59% of reported farm loans were made to firms with less than $1 million in revenue.
A total of 619 banks reported community development lending activity totaling nearly $111 billion in 2018, an 8% increase from the amount reported in 2018