Methodology

Quarterly bank filings come from the FDIC, roughly seven weeks after quarter end. Quarterly credit union filings come from the NCUA, about two to three months after quarter end. Lefomi checks bank data weekly, apps’ public disclosures monthly, and providers’ advertised cash rates daily. These schedules do not prove that a particular record was verified then. Each institution record shows its own filed quarter, which can differ between banks and credit unions. App disclosures show when they were read; rates show when they were observed. Source links are below.

The table shows seven bank ratios. FDIC amounts are thousands of dollars; ratios use matching units and appear as percentages. Community-bank filers reporting zero total risk-based capital, capital adjusted for asset risk, use tier 1 capital, the bank's core capital cushion, for commercial real estate concentration. Missing inputs or divisors at zero or below make a ratio not computable. Its weight is dropped; remaining weights are rescaled. Weights appear in Scores and grades.

Four credit union ratios appear below, using whole-dollar NCUA amounts and showing results as percentages. Comparisons use a separate population of credit unions of similar size. Bonds intended to be held until repayment are measured at amortized cost, purchase cost adjusted over time, relative to net worth, assets left after subtracting liabilities. NCUA does not publish these bonds’ market value, so this measure shows the size of holdings, not paper losses.

The five bands group institutions by total assets reported for the quarter being graded. Banks are compared with banks, and credit unions with credit unions. Each boundary amount belongs to the band starting at that amount. When an institution is alone in its band, there is no meaningful peer comparison. The site then hides its score and letter, along with its percentiles, rankings compared with similar institutions. Its page states that no peer comparison is available.

Scores run from 0 to 100. Each ratio percentile measures standing among similar-sized institutions of the same type reporting that ratio, excluding the institution itself. It is the percentage of peers with worse values plus half of tied peers, accounting for whether higher or lower values are better. Available percentiles form a composite, a weighted average with unavailable ratios’ weights redistributed. The displayed score is a second percentile, ranking higher composites better within the same group using the same comparison rules. Adjacent tables give weights and score-to-letter bands. By construction, letters are approximately 20 percent A, 30 percent B, 30 percent C, 15 percent D and 5 percent F; ties can change those shares. Grades describe relative standing, not absolute risk. The site does not forecast.

$250,000 is the standard FDIC deposit insurance limit per depositor, per insured bank and per ownership category, meaning how an account is owned. NCUA share insurance has the same limit per member, per insured credit union and per ownership category. Both are independent of grades. App pass-through insurance, coverage through a partner bank, depends on customer identification and balance records. Coverage concerns the bank, not the app or its closure. Balances in the same category at the same bank combine, including accounts held directly. The coverage calculator finds shared recorded banks, cannot see balances and does not calculate insured dollars. Lefomi does not guarantee coverage for any individual balance.

Bank records are at least seven weeks old; credit union records often lag longer. Each page identifies its reporting quarter. These are historical records, never a verdict or forecast. Missing or unusable inputs are excluded, with remaining measures given more weight. Credit union reports omit market values for bonds held until repayment. Business models differ, and banks serving businesses naturally have more deposits above insurance limits. Grades compare institutions within size groups, with banks and credit unions compared separately. Confidential regulatory examinations are not public and are not used. Grade letters do not determine deposit insurance.

Report errors in data or text to [email protected] and include the page address. Lefomi reports errors in FDIC or NCUA source data to the agency and corrects them when it next imports data. Lefomi corrects calculation errors and notes the change on the methodology page with the date.