Senior Loan Officer Opinion Survey on Bank Lending Practices

Blog article

The survey, used to provide qualitative and limited quantitative information on bank credit availability and loan demand, is conducted by the Federal Reserve up to six times a year. The current reporting panel consists of up to 80 large domestically chartered commercial banks and up to 24 large U.S. branches and agencies of foreign banks. It also provides information on evolving developments and lending practices in the U.S. loan markets.

The following is the result of survey in April from domestically chartered commercial banks for the following question:

“Over the last three months, how have your bank’s credit standards for approving applications for C&I loans or credit lines – other than those to be used to finance mergers and acquisitions – to large and middle-market firms (>$50 million) and to small firms changed?”

April 2024

The result is similar to the response collected in the survey in January 2024 for the same question:

January 2024

Overall, the number of banks responding that they are tightening the lending standards has come down from the recent peak in 2023 and though a slightly greater percentage of respondents indicated in April that the lending standards for C&I loans have tightened somewhat, the majority is remaining unchanged for the time being.

The full survey is available here:  Senior Loan Officer Opinion Survey on Bank Lending Practices