Bert Ely is a consultant specializing in banking issues. He writes ABA's Farm Credit Watch.
espite the Farm Credit System’s supposed emphasis on lending to young, beginning and small farmers and ranchers, data in the FCS’s annual information statement for 2017 documents the declining importance of small borrowers to the FCS over the last several years. Although total FCS lending from year-end 2015 to year-end 2017 increased $22.9 billion, or
By Bert Ely everal readers noted that last month’s Farm Credit Watch, issue #240, marked the 20th anniversary of the monthly publication of the FCW, which triggered a look-back at the FCW’s accomplishments over the last 20 years, and there have been a few. Perhaps the most significant has been educating bankers and other readers
By Bert Ely As last month’s Farm Credit Watch reported, the major tax bill Congress enacted at the end of last year added a new section 199A to the Internal Revenue Code, one portion of which would greatly benefit agricultural cooperatives at the expense of investor-owned grain companies of all sizes — not only Cargill
Hopefully an unintended consequence of the major tax legislation enacted in December will be the triggering of a fundamental review of the taxation of the FCS and agricultural co-ops relative to banks and other investor-owned businesses.
One unintended effect of the wide-ranging tax legislation Congress enacted last month was a slight reduction in the competitive edge the FCS has long had for loans secured by real estate.
By Bert Ely he FCS’s $10 billion line-of-credit with the Treasury Department’s Federal Financing Bank, or FFB, was recently renewed for another year, to expire on Sept. 30, 2018. This line-of-credit was first created in September 2013 and has been renewed annually since then. No public notice was given announcing this renewal — its extension
n the July Farm Credit Watch, I wrote that the Farm Credit System effectively accepts deposits, through the cash management services some FCS associations offer to their member/borrowers. As the article described, many associations in two of the four FCS districts — those funded by CoBank and AgriBank — accept deposits on behalf of the
According to a recent press release issued by the on-line magazine Global Finance, the four FCS banks are among the world’s 50 safest commercial banks.
Is the Farm Credit System subject to FinCEN’s final rule on beneficial ownership with respect to customer due diligence requirements?
The Farm Credit System has been hit by yet another accounting scandal, this time at Lone Star Ag Credit, which is headquartered in Fort Worth, Texas.