349 bank holding companies, $25 trillion — and the ten largest hold 62 percent
Thirty-five years of FR Y-9C filings, 1986 to 2021: the consolidated balance sheets of every bank holding company above the Federal Reserve's reporting threshold. In the last quarter on record the median filer had $7.7 billion in assets and a Tier 1 capital ratio of 13.2 percent; not one was below the regulatory minimum. Four threshold changes explain why the filer count fell from 2,310 to 349.
Questions this record answers
- How many bank holding companies file the FR Y-9C, and how much do they hold in assets?
- 349 holding companies filed for 2021Q1, the last quarter in the bulk series, with $25.1 trillion in consolidated assets; the median filer held $7.7 billion (FR Y-9C via Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago).
- Which are the largest bank holding companies in the United States, and what share of assets do the ten largest hold?
- JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Charles Schwab, U.S. Bancorp, TD Group US and Truist held $15.5 trillion in 2021Q1, 62 percent of all filers' assets.
- What is the median Tier 1 capital ratio of US bank holding companies, and how many are below the regulatory minimum?
- 13.18 percent in 2021Q1, weakest tenth above 10.99 percent; no filer with a reported ratio was below the 6 percent Tier 1 or 4 percent leverage minimum. At the end of 2008 the median was 10.80 percent.
- Why did the number of bank holding companies filing the FR Y-9C fall from 2,310 to 349?
- The Federal Reserve raised the reporting threshold four times: $150 million to $500 million in 2006, $1 billion in 2015 and $3 billion in 2018Q3; each step removed the smallest filers.
Cite as: FACTANKER, https://factanker.com/record/bank-holding-companies-349-filers-25-trillion
Banks file Call Reports; the companies that own them file the FR Y-9C, the consolidated statement of the whole holding company. The Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago published that series in bulk from the third quarter of 1986 to the first quarter of 2021, and we loaded all of it — 3.77 million filed values for 4,842 holding companies — and computed, for every quarter, where each company stands against all filers, its size class and its state. Later quarters exist only behind the FFIEC's National Information Center, which does not allow automated retrieval, so the series ends in 2021Q1.
Concentration at the top
In 2021Q1, 349 holding companies filed, with $25.1 trillion in consolidated assets. The median filer held $7.7 billion; a tenth held under $2.4 billion and a tenth more than $115 billion. The ten largest — JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Charles Schwab, U.S. Bancorp, TD Group US and Truist — held $15.5 trillion, 62 percent of the total. Thirty-eight holding companies were above $100 billion in assets, with a median of $190 billion.
Capital: nobody below the line
The median Tier 1 risk-based capital ratio was 13.18 percent and the weakest tenth stood above 10.99 percent; the median total capital ratio was 15.34 percent and the median leverage ratio 9.48 percent. Against the Federal Reserve's minimums of 6 percent (Tier 1) and 4 percent (leverage), no filer with a reported ratio was below either line in 2021Q1. The picture at the end of 2008 was different: a median Tier 1 ratio of 10.80 percent, with the weakest tenth at 7.62 percent, falling to 6.45 percent a year later. Profitability in 2021Q1: a median return on assets of 1.34 percent annualised, and a median equity-to-assets ratio of 10.46 percent.
Why the count fell from 2,310 to 349
The series is not one population. The Federal Reserve raised the asset threshold for consolidated reporting four times, and each step removed the smallest filers: 2,310 companies filed in 2005Q4 with a median of $372 million in assets; the $500 million threshold cut that to 998 in 2006Q2 (median $846 million); the $1 billion threshold brought 677 in 2015Q1 (median $1.9 billion); the $3 billion threshold in 2018Q3 left 372 (median $5.5 billion). Comparing a 2021 median with a 2005 median therefore compares different companies. Every benchmark page carries this warning and shows the filer count per quarter.
Where they are
New York has the most large holding companies on record for 2021Q1 — 38 filers — followed by the other states on their own benchmark pages. Every holding company has a page with its full quarterly series back to its first filing, its rank among all filers, its size class and its state, and a link to the filed value behind every number.
What this is and is not
Source: FR Y-9C bulk data as published by the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago (public domain), BHCK/BHCA/BHDM/BHFN/BHCW items, amounts in dollars (the form files in thousands). Parent-only filers (FR Y-9LP) are excluded. Capital ratios are the filed Schedule HC-R figures (MDRM 7206 Tier 1, 7205 total, 7204 leverage). Income is year to date, annualised with four over the quarter number for return on assets. Percentiles are percentile_cont over all filers of a group in the same quarter. Holding companies are named by their most recent filed legal name; earlier names remain in the record. The series ends in 2021Q1 and will be extended if a bulk source for later quarters becomes available.