NPL Explorer Methodology: Sources, Definitions and Limits

The NPL Explorer and the quarterly NPL report are built from the same public filings regulators use: the call reports every U.S. bank and credit union files each quarter. This page explains where each number comes from, how it's calculated and what it can't tell you. The goal is that anyone can check our figures against the source.

Sources

• Banks: FFIEC Call Reports (forms 031, 041 and 051), retrieved from the FFIEC Central Data Repository. These supply every balance we use: total loans, noncurrent loans, the allowance for credit losses, other real estate owned (OREO), charge-offs and loan-category detail. The FDIC's BankFind Suite supplies institution identity (name, headquarters, charter) and the FDIC's own return-on-assets, return-on-equity and net-interest-margin ratios. It also serves as a fallback if a call-report field is unavailable.
• Credit unions: NCUA's quarterly 5300 Call Report data files. They cover every federally insured credit union, plus some privately insured ones.

Coverage is every institution that filed for the quarter: 4,313 banks and 4,299 credit unions for June 30, 2026. NCUA's summary counts 4,214 federally insured credit unions; the rest of our credit-union filers are privately insured.

As a cross-check against the regulators' own summaries for that quarter:

• Banks, FDIC Quarterly Banking Profile: OREO is $4.91 billion in both, and the loss allowance is $223.9 billion in both. Our bank count (4,313) runs slightly above the FDIC's (4,238), and our noncurrent-loan total about 1% higher. So our coverage figure (1.71) sits just below the FDIC's 172.7%.
• Credit unions, NCUA Quarterly Data Summary: the 60+ day delinquency rate is 0.96% in both (96 basis points).

Definitions

Size groups. Banks: under $300 million, $300 million to $1 billion, $1 billion to $10 billion, and $10 billion and over, by total assets. Credit unions: under $100 million, $100 million to $500 million, $500 million to $1 billion, and $1 billion and over. Each institution is placed by its assets in each quarter, so a group's membership can change over time.

National and state totals are sums of dollar amounts, with ratios computed from those sums. So large institutions carry more weight, as they do in the FDIC's figures. State figures use each institution's headquarters state, not where its loans or properties are.

Limits to keep in mind

• Bank and credit-union measures are not equivalent. Banks report noncurrent loans (90+ days or nonaccrual), and credit unions report 60+ day delinquency. They are the closest measures the two filings share. Compare each with its own history; don't rank one against the other.
• Noncurrent loans include government-guaranteed loans. Large banks hold FHA- and VA-insured mortgages that count as noncurrent but carry little credit loss, which lifts their 1–4 family rates.
• OREO isn't purely foreclosures. It mostly holds foreclosed property, but it can also include former bank premises. For credit unions, commercial foreclosed assets may include some collateral that isn't real estate.
• CECL changed allowances in 2023. Most smaller banks and credit unions adopted the current-expected-credit-loss standard in January 2023, which changed how allowances are set. Coverage before and after 2023 isn't strictly comparable.
• Credit-union delinquency is seasonal. It dips every first quarter, so compare the same quarter across years.
• Amended filings. Amendments are picked up when a quarter is re-ingested. Published rankings and the quarterly report reflect the data on the day they were computed.

Timing

Call reports are due about 30 days after each quarter ends. The FDIC and NCUA publish the full data sets roughly 8 to 10 weeks after quarter-end. The NPL Explorer moves to a new quarter once both the bank and credit-union data are in, and the quarterly report follows.

Methodology updates

• Credit-union allowances and OREO (September 2026). Allowances now come from the CECL account (AS0048) when a credit union reports one, and account 719 otherwise. Foreclosed real estate now comes from NCUA's foreclosed-asset detail (AS0022 + AS0023; account 798A1 before 2022). Before this change we read accounts 719 and 798. CECL adopters report zero in 719, and NCUA no longer populates 798, so most credit unions showed near-zero reserves and no foreclosed property. That understated coverage on the Under-Reserved Lenders ranking and left both out of credit-union Texas Ratios.
• Bank OREO (March 2026 quarter). Bank OREO now comes directly from the call report's Schedule RC-M (MDRM 2150). Earlier quarters used the FDIC BankFind OREO field, and the two agree within tolerance.
• Bank noncurrent loans (March 2026 quarter). Bank noncurrent-loan volumes now come directly from Schedule RC-N of the call report. Earlier rankings used an approximation derived from FDIC BankFind ratios.

Citing this data

You're welcome to cite, chart and republish our figures with attribution:

Source: FIXnotes (fixnotes.com), from FFIEC, FDIC and NCUA call-report data.

For the quarterly figures, cite the quarterly NPL report, which has a CSV and charts to download. To report an error or ask a question, email support@fixnotes.com.